UBRAKt 

ONlVERS.Tt  Of 
CAUFORNtA 

SAN  DIEGO 


FRENCH    PROFILES 


Other  Works  by  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse 


On   Viol  and  FluU 
Flrdausi  in  Exile 
King  Erik 
In  Rusiet  and  Silver 


Hypolympia 

IN  PROSE 
Northern   Studies 

Life  of  Gray 

Seventeenth   Century   Studies 

Life  of  Congreve 

A   History  of  Eighteenth   Century  Literature 

A  Short  History  of  Modern  English  Literature 

Life  of  Philip  Henry  Gosse,   F.R.S. 

Gossip   in  a  Library 

The  Secret  of  Narcisse 

Questions  at  Issue 

Critical  Kit-Kats 


Life  and  Letters  of  John  Donne 
Life  of  Jeremy  "Taylor 


FRENCH    PROFILES 


BY 

EDMUND    GOSSE 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,    MEAD   AND    COMPANY 

MCMV 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


All  rights  reserved 


To 

My  Friend 

SIR  ALFRED  BATEMAN,  K.C.M.G. 

In  Memory  of 

The    Talks    of  Many    Tears 

I  Affectionately  Inscribe 

these  Studies 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/frenchprofilesOOgossiala 


PREFACE 

It  is  characteristic  of  native  criticism  that  it  con- 
templates, or  should  contemplate,  the  products  of 
native  literature  from  the  front ;  that  it  looks  at 
them,  in  other  words,  from  a  direct  and  complete 
point  of  view.  Foreign  criticism  must  not  pretend 
to  do  this ;  unless  it  is  satisfied  to  be  a  mere  echo 
or  repetition,  its  point  of  view  must  be  incomplete 
and  indirect,  must  be  that  of  one  who  paints  a 
face  in  profile.  In  preparing  the  following  side- 
views  of  some  curious  figures  in  modern  French 
literature,  I  have  attempted  to  keep  two  aims 
prominently  before  me.  I  have  tried  to  preserve 
that  attitude  of  sympathy,  of  general  comprehen- 
sion, for  the  lack  of  which  some  English  criticism 
of  foreign  authors  has  been  valueless,  because 
proceeding  from  a  point  so  far  out  of  focus  as  to 
make  its  whole  presentation  false ;  and  yet  I  have 
remembered  that  it  is  a  foreigner  who  takes  the 
portrait,  and  that  he  takes  it  for  a  foreign  audience, 
and  not  for  a  native  one. 

What  I  have  sought  in  every  case  to  do  is  to 
give  an  impression  of  the  figure  before  me  which 


vHI  PREFACE 

shall  be  in  general  harmony  with  the  tradition  of 
French  criticism,  but  at  the  same  time  to  preserve 
that  independence  which  is  the  right  of  a  foreign 
observer,  and  to  illustrate  the  peculiarities  of  my 
subject  by  references  to  English  poetry  and  prose. 

It  should  not  be  difficult  to  carry  out  this 
scheme  of  portraiture  in  the  case  of  authors  whose 
work  is  finished.  But  the  study  of  contemporary 
writers,  also,  is  of  great  interest,  and  must  not 
be  neglected,  although  its  results  are  incomplete. 
Several  of  the  authors  who  are  treated  here  are 
still  alive,  and  some  are  younger  than  myself.  It 
is  highly  probable  that  all  of  these  will,  in  the 
development  of  their  genius,  make  some  new 
advance  which  may  render  obsolete  what  the 
most  careful  criticism  has  said  about  them  up  to 
the  present  time.  In  these  living  cases,  there- 
fore, it  seems  more  helpful  to  consider  certain 
books  —  to  take  snapshots,  as  it  were,  at  the 
authors  in  the  course  of  their  progress — than  to 
attempt  a  summing-up  of  what  is  still  fortunately 
undefined.  Of  the  art  with  which  this  can  be 
done,  and  the  permanent  value  of  that  art,  the 
French  criticism  of  our  generation  has  given 
admirable  proof. 

The  last  chapter  in  this  book  is  not  in  any 
sense  a  profile,  but  the  writer  trusts  that  he  will 
be  forgiven  for  introducing  it  here.  Last  winter 
he  had  the  honour  of   being  invited  to  Paris  to 


PREFACE  ix 

deliver  an  address  before  the  Societe  des  Con- 
ferences. The  Committee  of  that  Society,  consist- 
ing of  MM.  Ferdinand  Bruneti^re,  Edouard  Rod 
and  Gaston  Deschamps,  in  proposing  the  subject 
of  the  address,  asked  that  it  should  be  delivered  in 
English.  In  an  admirable  French  translation, 
made  by  my  accomplished  friend,  M.  Henry  D. 
Davray,  it  was  afterwards  published  in  the  Mercure 
de  France  and  then  as  a  separate  brochure,  but  the 
English  text  is  now  printed  for  the  first  time. 

Mr.  James  Fitzmaurice-Kelly  has  been  so  kind 
as  to  read  the  proofs  of  this  volume,  and  I  am 
indebted  to  his  rare  acquaintance  with  Continental 
literature  for  many  valuable  corrections  and 
suggestions.  My  thanks  are  due  to  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  Fortnightly  Review,  the  Contemporary 
Review,  the  International  Quarterly  Review,  the 
Saturday  Review  and  the  Daily  Chronicle,  for  per- 
mission to  reprint  what  originally  appeared  in 
their  pages.  I  regret  that  in  one  other  case, 
that  of  the  useful  and  unique  European  review, 
Cosmopolis,  there  is  no  one  left  who  can  receive 
this  acknowledgment. 

ARGELks-GAZOST, 
September  1904. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Preface 

vii 

Alfred  de   Vigny            .... 

I 

Mademoiselle  A'tsse       .... 

35 

A  Nun's  Love-Letters 

68 

Barbey   W  Aurevilly      .... 

92 

Alphonse  Daudet            .... 

108 

The  Short  Stories  of  Zola     . 

129 

Ferdinand  Fabre           .... 

153 

The  Irony  of  M.   Anatole  France 

189 

Pierre  Loti          ..... 

202 

Some  Recent  Books  of  M.   Paul  Bourget 

239 

M.   Rene  Ba%in            .... 

266 

M.  Henri  de  Regnier            .          . 

292 

Four  Poets  : — 

Stephane  Mallarme 

305 

M.  Emile   Verhaeren     . 

312 

Albert  Samain       .... 

318 

M.   Paul  Fort     .... 

324 

The  Influence  of  France  upon  English   Poetry 

330 

Index          ...... 

365 

FRENCH    PROFILES 


ALFRED  DE  VIGNY 

The  reputation  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  has  endured 
extraordinary  vicissitudes  in  France.  After  having 
taken  his  place  as  the  precursor  of  French  ro- 
mantic poetry  and  as  one  of  the  most  admired  of 
its  proficients,  he  withdrew  from  among  his  noisier 
and  more  copious  contemporaries  into  that  "  ivory 
tower  "  of  reverie  which  is  the  one  commonplace 
of  criticism  regarding  him.  He  died  in  as  deep  a 
retirement  as  if  his  body  had  lain  in  the  shepherd's 
hut  on  wheels  upon  the  open  moorland,  which  he 
took  as  the  symbol  of  his  isolation.  He  had  long 
been  neglected,  he  was  almost  forgotten,  when  the 
publication  of  his  posthumous  poems — a  handful 
of  unflawed  amethysts  and  sapphires — revived  his 
fame  among  the  enlightened.  But  the  Second 
Empire  was  a  period  deeply  unfavourable  to  such 
contemplation  as  the  writings  of  Vigny  demand. 
He  sank  a  second  time  into  semi-oblivion  ;  he 
became  a  curiosity  of  criticism,  a  hunting-ground 
for  anthology-makers.  Within  the  last  ten  years, 
however,  a  marked  revolution  of  taste  has  occurred 
in  France.     The  supremacy  of  Victor  Hugo  has 

A 


2  FRENCH    PROFILES 

been,  if  not  questioned,  since  it  is  above  serious 
attack,  at  least  mitigated.  Other  poets  have  re- 
covered from  their  obscurity  ;  Lamartine,  who  had 
been  quenched,  shines  like  a  lamp  relighted  ;  and, 
above  all,  the  pure  and  brilliant  and  profoundly 
original  genius  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  now  takes,  for 
the  first  time,  its  proper  place  as  one  of  the  main 
illuminating  forces  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It 
was  not  until  about  ninety  years  after  this  poet's 
birth  that  it  became  clearly  recognised  that  he  is 
one  of  the  most  important  of  all  the  great  poets  of 
France. 

The  revival  of  admiration  for  Vigny  has  not  yet 
spread  to  England,  where  he  is  perhaps  less  known 
than  any  other  French  writer  of  the  first  class. 
This  is  the  more  to  be  regretted  because  he  did 
not,  in  the  brief  day  of  his  early  glory,  contrive  to 
attract  many  hearers  outside  his  own  country.  It 
is  not  merely  regrettable,  moreover,  it  is  curiously 
unjust,  because  Vigny  is  of  all  the  great  French 
poets  the  one  who  has  assimilated  most  of  the 
English  spirit,  and  has  been  influenced  most  by 
English  poetry.  Andr6  Ch^nier  read  Pope  and 
Thomson  and  the  Faerie  Queen  but  he  detested 
the  Anglo-Saxon  spirit.  Alfred  de  Vigny,  on  the 
other  hand,  delighted  in  it ;  he  was  a  convinced 
Anglophil,  and  the  writers  whom  he  resembles,  in 
his  sublime  isolation  from  the  tradition  of  his  own 
country,  are  Wordsworth  and  Shelley,  Matthew 
Arnold  and  Leopardi.  He  has  much  of  the  spirit 
of  Dante  and  of  the  attitude  of  Milton.  Wholly 
independent  as  he  is,  one  of  the  most  unattached 
of  writers,  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  in  him  a 


t 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  3 

certain  Anglo-Italian  gravity  and  intensity,  a  cer- 
tain reserve  and  resignation  in  the  face  of  human 
suffering,  which  distinguish  him  from  all  other 
French  writers  of  eminence.  It  is  not  from  any 
of  Alfred  de  Vigny's  great  contemporaries  that  life 
would  have  extracted  that  last  cry  in  the  desert : — 

"  Seul  le  silence  est  grand  :  tout  le  teste  est  faiblesse," 

nor  should  we  look  to  them  for  the  ambiguous 
device  *'  Parfaite  illusion — R6alit6  parfaite."  The 
other  poets  of  France  have  been  picturesque, 
abundant,  gregarious,  vehement  ;  Alfred  de  Vigny 
was  not  of  their  class,  but  we  can  easily  conceive 
him  among  those  who,  in  the  Cumberland  of 
a  hundred  years  ago,  were  murmuring  by  the 
running  brooks  a  music  sweeter  than  their  own. 

One  word  of  warning  may  not  be  out  of  place. 
If  Alfred  de  Vigny  was  known  to  English  readers 
of  a  past  generation  it  was  mainly  through  a 
brilliant  study  by  Sainte-Beuve  in  his  Nouveaux 
Lundis.  This  was  composed  very  shortly  after 
the  death  of  Vigny,  and,  in  spite  of  its  excessive 
critical  cleverness,  it  deserves  very  little  commen- 
dation. Sainte-Beuve,  who  had  been  more  or  less 
intimate  with  Vigny  forty  years  before,  had  formed 
a  strange  jealousy  of  him,  and  in  this  essay  his 
perfidy  runs  riot.  It  is  Sainte-Beuve  who  calls 
the  poet  of  Les  Desitnees  a  "  beautiful  angel 
who  had  been  drinking  vinegar,"  and  the  modern 
reader  needs  a  strong  caution  against  the  malice 
and  raillery  of  the  quondam  friend  who  was  so 
patient  and  who  forgot  nothing. 


4  FRENCH    PROFILES 

I 

An  image  of  the  youthful  Alfred  de  Vigny  is 
preserved  for  us  in  the  charming  portrait  of  the 
Carnavalet  Museum.  Here  he  smiles  at  us  out  of 
gentle  blue  eyes,  and  under  copious  yellow  curls, 
candid,  dreamy,  almost  childlike  in  his  magnificent 
scarlet  and  gold  uniform  of  the  King's  Musketeers, 
This  portrait  was  painted  in  1815,  when  the  sub- 
ject of  it  was  just  eighteen,  yet  had  already  served 
in  the  army  for  a  year.  Alfred  de  Vigny  was  born 
at  Leches,  on  March  27,  1797.  Aristocrats  and 
of  families  wholly  military,  his  father  and  mother 
had  been  thrown  into  prison  during  the  Terror, 
had  escaped  with  their  lives,  and  had  concealed 
themselves  after  Thermidor,  in  the  romantic  little 
town  of  the  Touraine.  The  childhood  of  the  poet 
was  not  particularly  interesting  ;  what  is  known 
about  it  is  recorded  in  M.  S^che's  recent  volume  1 
and  elsewhere.  But  there  effervesced  in  his  young 
soul  a  burning  ambition  for  arms,  and  before  he 
was  seventeen,  he  contrived  to  leave  school  and 
enter  a  squadron  of  the  Gendarmes  Rouges.  He 
was  full  of  military  pride  in  his  early  life,  and  until 
his  illusions  overcame  him  he  hardly  knew  whether 
to  be  more  vain  of  the  laurel  or  of  the  sword.  He 
says : — 

"  J'ai  mis  sur  le  cimier  dore  du  gentilhomme 
Une  plume  de  fer  qui  n'est  pas  sans  beautd  ; 
J'ai  fait  illustre  un  nom  qu'on  m'a  transmis  sans  gloire," 

for  he  knew  that  the  deeds  of  that  "  petite  nob- 

^  L6on  Sech^,  Alfred  de  Vigny  et  son  Temps,  Paris,  Felix  Juven,  1902. 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  5 

lebse"  from  which  he  sprang  were  excellent,  but 
not  magnificent. 

No  one  seems  to  have  discovered  under  what 
auspices  he  began  to  write  verses.  There  appear 
in  his  works  two  idyls,  La  Dryade  and  Syme'tha, 
which  are  marked  as  "  written  in  1815." 
Sainte-Beuve,  with  curious  coarseness,  after 
Vigny's  death,  accused  him  in  so  many  terms 
of  having  antedated  these  pieces  by  five  years  in 
order  to  escape  the  reproach  of  having  imitated 
Andre  Chenier,  whose  poems  were  first  collected 
posthumously  in  18 19.  Such  a  charge  is  contrary 
to  everything  we  know  of  the  upright  and  chival- 
rous character  of  Vigny.  That  the  influence  of 
Chenier  is  strong  on  these  verses  is  unquestionable. 
But  Sainte-Beuve  should  not  have  forgotten  that 
the  eclogues  of  Chenier  were  quoted  by  Chateau- 
briand in  a  note  to  the  G^nie  du  Christianisme  in 
1802,  and  that  this  was  quite  enough  to  start  the 
youthful  talent  of  Vigny.  From  this  time  forth, 
no  attack  can  be  made  on  the  originality  of  the 
poet,  so  far  as  all  French  influences  are  concerned. 
The  next  piece  of  his  which  we  possess,  La  Dame 
Romainef  is  dated  1817  ;  this  and  Le  Baly  of 
18 18,  show  the  attraction  which  Byron  had  for 
him.  In  these  verses  the  romantic  school  of 
French  poetry  made  its  earliest  appeal  to  the 
public,  and  in  1819  Alfred  de  Vigny's  friendship 
with  the  youthful  Victor  Hugo  began. 

It  was  in  1822  that  a  little  volume  of  the  highest 
historical  importance  was  issued,  without  the 
name  of  its  author,  and  under  the  modest  title 
of    Poemes.        It    was    divided    into    three    parts, 


6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Antiques,  Judaiques,  and  Modernes,  and  the  second 
of  these  sections  contained  one  poem  which 
can  still  be  read  with  undiluted  pleasure.  This 
is  the  exquisite  lyrical  narrative  entitled  La  Fille 
de  Jephte,  which  had  been  composed  in  1820. 
To  realise  what  were  the  merits  of  Alfred  de 
Vigny  as  a  precursor,  we  have  but  to  compare 
this  faultless  Biblical  elegy  with  anything  of  the 
kind  written  up  to  that  date  by  a  French  poet, 
even  though  his  name  was  Hugo. 

Meanwhile  the  life  of  Vigny  was  a  picturesque 
and  melancholy  one.  A  certain  impression  of  its 
features  may  be  gathered,  incidentally,  from  the 
pages  of  the  Grandeur  et  Servitude  Militaires,  al- 
though that  was  written  long  afterwards.  He  was 
a  soldier  from  his  seventeenth  to  his  thirtieth  year, 
and  many  of  his  best  poems  were  written  by 
lamplight,  in  the  corner  of  a  tent,  as  the  young 
lieutenant  lay  on  his  elbow,  waiting  for  the  tuck 
of  drum.  He  was  long  in  garrison  with  the  Royal 
Foot  Guards  at  Vincennfes,  and  thence  he  could 
slip  in  to  Paris,  meet  the  other  budding  poets  at 
the  rooms  of  Nodier,  and  recite  verses  with  Emile 
Deschamps  and  Victor  Hugo.  But  in  1823  he 
was  definitely  torn  from  Paris.  The  Spanish  War 
took  his  regiment  to  the  Pyrenean  frontier  and  it 
was  while  in  camp,  close  to  Roncevaux  and  Fuent- 
arrabia,  that  he  seems  to  have  heard,  one  knows 
not  how,  of  the  newly  discovered  wonders  of  the 
Chanson  de  Roland,  which  was  still  unknown  save 
to  a  few  English  scholars  ;  the  result  was  that 
he  wrote  that  enchanting  poem,  Le  Cor.  If  the 
student  is  challenged,  as  he  sometimes  is,  to  name 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  7 

a  lyric  in  the  French  language  which  has  the 
irresistible  magic  and  melody  of  the  best  pieces  of 
Coleridge  or  Keats,  that  fairy  music  which  is  the 
peculiar  birthright  of  England,  he  cannot  do 
better  than  to  quote,  almost  at  random,  from  Le 
Cor  : — 

"  Sur  le  plus  haut  des  monts  s'arretent  les  chevaux  ; 
L'^cume  les  blanchit ;  sous  leurs  pieds,  Roncevaux 
Des  feux  mourants  du  jour  k  peine  se  colore. 
A  I'horizon  lointain  fuit  I'etendard  du  More. 

*  Turpin,  n'as-tu  rien  vu  dans  le  fond  du  torrent  ?' 
'  J'y  vols  deux  chevaliers ;  I'un  mort,  I'autre  expirant. 
Tous  deux  sont  ecrases  sous  une  roche  noire  : 
Le  plus  fort,  dans  sa  main,  dleve  un  Cor  d'ivoire, 
Son  ime  en  s'exhalant  nous  appela  deux  fois.' 

Dieu  I  que  le  son  du  Cor  est  triste  au  fond  des  bois." 

Begun  at  Roncevaux  in  1823,  Le  Cor  was 
finished  at  Pau  in  1825.  At  the  former  date, 
Alfred  de  Vigny  was  slightly  in  love  with  the 
fascinating  Delphine  Gay,  and  some  verses,  re- 
cently given  to  the  world,  lead  to  the  belief  that 
he  failed  to  propose  to  her  because  she  ^Haughed  too 
loudly."  Already  the  melancholy  and  distinguished 
sobriety  of  manner  which  was  to  be  the  mark  of 
Alfred  de  Vigny  had  begun  to  settle  upon  him. 
Already  he  shrank  from  noise,  from  levity,  from 
hollow  and  reverberating  enthusiasm.  His  regi- 
ment was  sent  to  Strasburg  and  he  became  a 
captain.  Returning  to  the  Pyrenees,  he  wrote 
Le  Deluge  and  Dolorida ;  in  the  Vosges  he 
composed  the  first  draft  of  £lloa,  which  he 
called  Satan.  In  the  second  edition  of  his 
PoemeSf  there  were  included  a  number  of  pieces 


8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

vastly  superior  to  those  previously  published,  and 
Alfred  de  Vigny  boldly  claimed  for  himself  that 
distinction  as  a  precursor,  which  was  long  denied 
to  him,  and  which  is  now  again  universally  con- 
ceded. He  wrote  that  "the  only  merit  of  these 
poems," — it  was  not  their  only  or  their  greatest 
merit,  but  it  was  a  distinction, — "  c'est  d'avoir 
devance  en  France  toutes  celles  de  ce  genre." 
That  was  absolutely  true. 

When  we  reflect  that  the  earliest  poems  of 
Victor  Hugo  which  display  his  characteristic 
talent,  such  as  Le  Sylphe  and  La  Grand'mere, 
belong  to  1823,  the  originality  of  Mo'tse,  which 
was  written  in  1822,  is  extraordinary.  In  spite 
of  all  that  has  been  published  since,  this  poem 
may  still  be  read  with  complete  pleasure  ;  there 
are  few  narratives  in  the  French  language  more 
distinguished,  more  uplifted.  Moses  stands  at 
sunset  on  the  brow  of  Nebo  ;  the  land  of  Canaan 
lies  spread  at  his  feet.  He  gazes  at  it  with  long- 
ing and  despair,  and  then  he  turns  to  climb  the 
mountain.  Amid  the  hymns  of  Israel  he  ascends 
into  the  clouds,  and  in  the  luminous  obscurity  he 
speaks  with  God.  In  a  majestic  soliloquy  he  ex- 
patiates on  the  illusions  of  his  solitary  greatness, 
and  on  the  disappointment  of  his  finding  his  own 
life  more  isolated  and  more  arid  the  vaster  his 
destinies  become.  The  angels,  themselves,  envy 
his  position  : — 

"  Vos  anges  sont  jaloux  et  m'admirent  entre  eux, 
Et  cependant,  Seigneur,  je  ne  suis  pas  heureux ; 
Vous  m'avez  fait  vieillir  puissant  et  solitaire, 
Laissez-moi  m'endormir  du  sommeil  de  la  terre." 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  9 

Here  we  have  at  length  the  master  accent  of 
Alfred  de  Vigny,  that  which  was  to  be  the  central 
note  of  his  poetry,  a  conception  of  the  sublimity 
of  man,  who,  having  tasted  of  the  water  of 
life,  sinks  back  "  dizzy,  lost,  yet  unbewailing." 
Nothing  could  be  more  poignant  than  the 
melodious  reverie  of  Moses : — 

"  J'ai  vu  I'amour  s'eteindre  et  I'amitie  tarir ; 
Les  vierges  se  voilaient  et  craignaient  de  mourir. 
M'enveloppant  alors  de  la  colonne  noire, 
J'ai  marche  devant  tous,  triste  et  seul  dans  ma  gloire, 
Et  j'ai  dit  dans  mon  coeur  :  '  Que  vouloir  a  present  ?' 
Pour  dormir  sur  un  sein  mon  front  est  trop  pesant, 
Ma  main  laisse  I'effroi  sur  la  main  qu'elle  touche, 
L'orage  est  dans  ma  voix,  I'dclair  est  sur  ma  bouche  ; 
Aussi,  loin  de  m'aimer,  voili  qu'ils  tremblent  tous, 
Et,  quand  j'ouvre  les  bras,  on  tombe  k  mes  genoux. 
O  Seigneur  !  j'ai  vdcu  puissant  et  solitaire, 
Laissez-moi  m'endormir  du  sommeil  de  la  terre  ! " 

On  the  morning  when  these  enchanting  verses 
were  composed,  poetry  was  full-grown  again  in 
France,  reborn  after  the  long  burial  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century. 

The  processes  of  the  poet's  mind  are  still  better 
observed  in  Le  Deluge,  a.  less  perfect  poem.  All 
was  serene  and  splendid  in  the  primeval  world, 

"  Et  la  beaute  du  Monde  attestait  son  enfance," 

but  there  was  one  blot  on  the  terrestrial  paradise, 
for  "  I'Homme  etait  m^chant."  In  consequence  of 
a  secret  warning,  Noah  builds  the  ark,  and  enters 
it  with  his  family.  One  of  his  descendants, 
however,  the  young  Sara,  refuses  to  take  shelter 
in  it,  because  she   has   an   appointment  to   meet 


lo  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Emmanuel,  her  angel  lover,  on  Mount  Arar. 
The  deluge  arrives  ;  Sara  calls  in  vain  on  her 
supernatural  protector,  and,  climbing  far  up  the 
peak,  is  the  last  of  mortals  to  be  submerged.  The 
violence  of  the  flood  is  rather  grotesquely  described ; 
the  succeeding  calm  is,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
purest  Vigny  : — 

"  La  vague  ^tait  paisible,  et  moUe  et  cadencde, 
En  berceaux  de  cristal  moUement  balancee  ; 
Les  vents,  sans  resistance,  dtaient  silencieux  ; 
La  foudre,  sans  echos,  expirait  dans  les  cieux  ; 
Les  cieux  devenaient  purs,  et,  reflechis  dans  I'onde, 
Teignaient  d'un  azur  clair  Timmensite  profonde." 

Written  in  the  Pyrenees  in  1823,  Le  Deluge  exempli- 
fies the  close  attention  which  Alfred  de  Vigny  paid 
to  English  literature,  and  particularly  to  Byron. 
In  Moise  the  sole  influences  discoverable  are  those 
of  the  Bible  and  Milton  ;  Le  Deluge  shows  that 
the  French  poet  had  just  been  reading  Heaven 
and  Earth.  This  drama  was  not  published  until 
January  1823,  a  week  after  Moore's  Loves  of 
the  Angels,  which  also  was  already  exercising  a 
fascination  over  the  mind  of  Vigny.  The  prompti- 
tude with  which  he  transferred  these  elements  into 
his  own  language  is  very  remarkable,  and  has  never, 
I  think,  been  noted. 

Still  more  observable  are  these  English  influences 
in  &loa,  which  was  written  in  the  spring  of  1824. 
This  is  the  romance  of  pity,  tenderness,  and  sacri- 
fice, of  vain  self-sacrifice  and  of  pity  without  hands 
to  help.  It  was  received  by  the  young  writers  of  its 
own  country  with  a  frenzy  of  admiration.  In  La 
Muse  Fran^aise  Victor   Hugo  reviewed  it  in  terms 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  ii 

of  redundant  eulogy.  A  little  later,  and  when  so 
much  more  of  a  brilliant  character  had  been 
published,  Gautier  styled  £loa  "  the  most  beautiful 
and  perhaps  the  most  perfect  poem  in  the  French 
language."  As  a  specimen  of  idealistic  religious 
romanticism  it  will  always  be  a  classic  and  will 
always  be  read  with  pleasure ;  but  time  has 
somewhat  tarnished  its  sentimental  beauty.  It 
is  another  variant  of  The  Loves  of  the  Angels f 
but  treated  in  a  far  purer  and  more  ethereal  spirit 
than  that  of  Moore  or  Byron. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  point  to  a  more  delicate 
example  of  the  school  of  sensibility  than  Eloa.  To 
submit  one's  self  without  reserve  to  its  pellucid 
charm  is  like  gazing  into  the  depths  of  an  ame- 
thyst. The  subject  is  sentimental  in  the  highest 
degree ;  Eloa  is  an  angel,  who,  in  her  blissful 
state,  hears  of  the  agony  of  Satan,  and  is  drawn 
by  curiosity  and  pity  to  descend  into  his  sphere. 
Her  compassion  and  her  imprudence  are  rewarded 
by  her  falling  passionately  in  love  with  the  stricken 
archangel,  and  resigning  herself  to  his  baneful 
force.  Brought  face  to  face  with  his  crimes,  she 
resists  him,  but  the  wily  fiend  melts  into  hypo- 
critical tears,  and  Eloa  sinks  into  his  arms. 
Wrapped  in  a  flowing  cloud  they  pass  together 
down  to  Hell,  and  a  chorus  of  faithful  seraphim, 
winging  their  way  back  to  Paradise,  overhear  this 
latest  and  fatal  dialogue: — 

"  '  Oil  me  conduisez-vous,  bel  ange  ?  '     '  Viens  toujours.' 
— *  Que  votre  voix  est  triste,  et  quel  sombre  discours  ! 
N'est-ce  pas  ifcloa  qui  soul^ve  ta  chaine  ? 
J'ai  cru  t'avoir  sauve.'     '  Non  !  c'est  moi  qui  t'entraine.' 


12  FRENCH    PROFILES 

— *  Si  nous  sommes  unis,  peu  m'importe  en  quel  lieu  ! 

Nomme-moi  done  encore  ou  ta  soeur  ou  ton  dieu  ! ' 

— '  J'enl^ve  mon  esclave  et  je  tiens  ma  victime.' 

— 'Tu  paraissais  si  bon  !     Oh  !  qu'ai-je  fait  ? '     '  Un  crime. 

— '  Seras-tu  plus  heureux  ?  du  moins,  es-tu  content  ? ' 

— '  Plus  triste  que  jamais.'    — '  Qui  done  est-tu  ? '    '  Satan.' " 

Taste  changes,  and  ^loa  has  too  much  the 
appearance,  to  our  eyes,  of  a  wax-work.  But 
nothing  can  prevent  our  appreciation  of  the 
magnificent  verses  in  which  it  is  written.  The 
design  and  scheme  of  colour  may  be  those  of  Ary 
Scheffer,  the  execution  is  worthy  of  Raphael. 

Before  we  cease  to  examine  these  early  writings, 
however,  we  must  spare  a  moment — though  only 
a  moment — to  the  consideration  of  a  work  which 
gave  Vigny  the  popular  celebrity  which  served  to 
introduce  his  verses  to  a  wider  public.  Early  in 
1826  he  was  presented  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  in 
Paris,  and,  fired  with  Anglomaniac  ambition,  he 
immediately  sat  down  to  write  a  French  Waverley 
novel.  The  result  was  Cinq-Mars,  long  the  most 
successful  of  all  his  writings,  although  not  the 
best.  It  is  a  story  of  the  time  of  Louis  XIII.  and 
of  Cardinal  Richelieu  ;  it  deals  with  all  the  court 
intrigues  which  led  up  to  the  horrible  assassina- 
tion of  De  Thou  and  of  Henri  d'Effiat,  Marquis 
de  Cinq- Mars.  Anne  of  Austria  is  a  foremost 
figure  on  the  scene  of  it.  Cinq-Mars,  a  very  care- 
ful study  in  the  manner  of  Walter  Scott,  was 
afterwards  enriched  by  notes  and  historical 
apparatus,  and  by  an  essay  "  On  Truth  in  Art," 
written  in  1827.  It  has  passed  through  countless 
editions,  but  it  is  overfull  of  details,  the  plot  drags. 


ALFRED    DE   VIGNY  13 

and  the  reader  must  be  simple  to  find  it  an  excit- 
ing romance.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  in  it  the 
Anglophil  tendencies  of  its  author  betrayed  in 
quotations  from  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Byron, 
and  the  restricted  circle  of  his  friends  by  frequent 
introduction  of  the  names  of  Delphine  Gay, 
Soumet,  Nodier,  Lammenais.  Cinq -Mars  will 
always  be  remembered  as  the  earliest  French 
romantic  novel  of  the  historical  order. 

The  marriage  of  Alfred  de  Vigny,  the  facts  and 
even  the  date  of  which  have  been  persistently 
misreported  by  his  biographers — even  by  M. 
Pal^ologue — took  place,  as  M.  S6ch6  has  proved, 
at  Pau,  on  February  3,  1825.  He  married  Miss 
Lydia  Bunbury,  the  daughter  of  Sir  Edward 
Bunbury,  a  soldier  and  politician  not  without 
eminence  in  his  day.  She  was  twenty-six  years 
of  age,  of  a  "  majestic  beauty  "  which  soon  dis- 
appeared under  the  attacks  of  ill-health,  and 
everything  about  her  gratified  the  excessive  Anglo- 
mania of  the  poet.  She  could  not  talk  French 
with  ease,  and  curiously  enough  when  she  had 
for  many  years  been  the  Comtesse  Alfred  de 
Vigny,  it  was  observed  that  she  still  spoke  broken 
French  with  a  strong  English  accent.  It  appears 
that  this  was  positively  agreeable  to  the  poet,  who 
had  a  little  while  before  written  that  his  only 
penates  were  his  Bible  and  "  a  few  English  engrav- 
ings," and  whose  conversation  ran  incessantly  on 
Byron,  Southey,  Moore,  and  Scott.  It  is  certain 
that  some  French  critics  have  found  it  hard  to 
forgive  the  intensity  of  Vigny's  early  love  of  all 
things  English. 


14  FRENCH    PROFILES 

French  writers  have  laboured  to  prove  that  the 
marriage  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  was  an  unhappy  one. 
It  was  certainly  both  anomalous  and  unfortunate, 
but  there  is  no  need  to  exaggerate  its  misfortunes. 
Lydia  Bunbury  appears  to  have  been  limited  in 
intelligence  and  sympathy,  and  bad  health  gradually 
made  her  fretful.  Yet  there  exists  no  evidence 
that  she  ever  lost  her  liking  for  her  husband  or 
ceased  to  be  soothed  by  his  presence.  He,  for 
his  part,  had  never  loved  when  he  proposed  to 
Lydia  Bunbury,  and  their  relations  continued  to 
be  as  phlegmatic  on  the  one  side  as  on  the  other. 
For  four  or  five  years  they  lived  together  in  sober 
friendship,  Lydia  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into 
the  condition  of  a  chronic  invalid.  She  was  then 
nursed  and  tended  by  her  husband  with  the 
tenderest  assiduity  and  patience,  and  in  later 
years  he  was  a  constant  visitor  at  her  sofa.  She 
had  exchanged  a  husband  for  a  nurse,  and  doubt- 
less renunciation  would  have  been  the  greater 
part  for  Vigny  also  to  play.  But  over  his  calm 
existence  love  now,  for  the  first  and  only  time, 
swept  like  a  whirlwind  of  fire.  In  the  tumult  of 
this  passion  it  is  to  his  credit  that  he  never  forgot 
to  be  patient  with  and  solicitous  about  the  helpless 
invalid  at  home.  If  morality  is  offended,  let  this 
at  least  be  recollected,  that  Lydia  de  Vigny  knew 
all,  and  expressed  no  murmur  which  has  been 
recorded. 

The  first  period  of  Alfred  de  Vigny's  life  closed 
in  1827,  when  he  left  the  army,  on  the  pretext  of 
health.  He  travelled  in  England  with  his  wife, 
and  it  was  at  Dieppe,  on  a  return  journey  in  1828, 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  15 

that  he  wrote  the  most  splendid  of  his  few  lyrical 
poems,  La  Fre'gate  '  La  Serieuse.'  This  ode  is  too 
long  for  its  interest,  but  contains  stanzas  that 
have  never  been  surpassed  for  brilliance,  as  for 
example : — 

"  Comme  un  dauphin  elle  saute, 

Elle  plonge  comme  lui 
Dans  la  mer  profonde  et  haute 

Ou  le  feu  Saint-Elme  a  lui. 
Le  feu  serpente  avec  grace  ; 
Du  gouvernail  qu'il  embrasse 
II  marque  longtemps  la  trace, 

Et  Ton  dirait  un  Eclair 
Qui,  n'ayant  pu  nous  atteindre, 
Dans  les  vagues  va  s'eteindre, 
Mais  ne  cesse  de  les  teindre 

Du  prisme  enflammd  de  I'air." 

II 

It  is  remarkable  to  notice  how  many  English 
influences  the  nature  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  obeyed. 
In  May,  1828,  the  performances  of  Edmund  Kean 
in  Paris  stirred  his  imagination  to  its  depths.  He 
immediately  plunged  himself  into  a  fresh  study  of 
Shakespeare,  and  still  further  exercised  his  fancy 
by  repeated  experiences  of  the  magic  of  Mrs. 
Siddons  during  a  long  visit  he  paid  to  London. 
The  result  was  soon  apparent  in  his  attempts  to 
render  Shakespeare  vocal  to  the  French,  who  had 
welcomed  Kean's  "  Othello  "  with  "  un  vulgaire  le 
plus  profane  que  jamais  I'ignorance  parisienne  ait 
d6chain6  dans  une  salle  de  spectacle"  (May  17, 
1828).  Vigny  translated  The  Merchant  of  Venice, 
Romeo   and  Juliet,    and,   above    all,    Othello,   which 


i6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

was  acted  in  October,  1829,  amid  the  plaudits 
of  the  whole  romantic  camp  of  Paris.  That 
night  Vigny,  already  extremely  admired  within 
a  limited  circle,  became  universally  famous,  and 
a  dangerous  rival  to  Victor  Hugo,  with  whose 
Hemani  and  Marion  de  Lorme,  moreover,  com- 
parison soon  grew  inevitable. 

But  Alfred  de  Vigny  cared  little  for  the  jealousies 
of  the  Cenacle.  He  was  now  absorbed  by  a  very 
different  passion.  It  appears  to  have  been  on  May 
30,  1829,^  that,  after  a  performance  of  Casimir 
Delavigne's  romantic  tragedy  of  Marino  Faliero, 
Vigny  was  presented  to  the  actress,  Marie  Dorval. 
This  remarkable  woman  of  genius  had  been  born 
in  1798,  had  shown  from  the  age  of  four  years  a 
prodigious  talent  for  the  stage,  had  made  her 
debut  in  Paris  in  1818,  and  had  been  a  universal 
favourite  since  1822.  She  was,  therefore,  neither 
very  young  nor  very  new  when  she  passed  across 
the  path  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  with  such  fiery  results. 
She  was  highly  practised  in  the  arts  of  love,  and 
he  a  timid  and  fastidious  novice.  It  may  even  be 
said,  without  too  great  a  paradox,  that  the  romance 
of  £lloa  was  now  enacted  in  real  life,  with  the  parts 
reversed,  for  the  poet  was  the  candid  angel,  drawn 
to  his  fall  by  pity,  curiosity,  and  tenderness,  while 
Madame  Dorval  was  the  formidable  and  fatal  demon 
who  dragged  him  down.  "  Demon,"  however,  is 
far  too  harsh  a  word  to  employ,  even  in  jest,  for 
this  tremulous  and  expansive  woman,  all  emotion 
and  undisciplined  ardour.  M.  S6ch6  has  put  the 
position  very  well  before  us :  "  When,  at  the  age 

^  See  M.  L^on  S&he's  monograph,  pp.  53-56. 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  17 

of  thirty-two,  she  saw  kneeling  at  her  feet  this 
gentleman  of  ancient  lineage,  his  charming  face 
framed  in  his  blond  and  curly  hair  and  delicately 
lighted  up  by  the  tender  azure  of  his  eyes,  she 
experienced  a  sentiment  she  had  never  felt  before, 
as  though  a  cup  of  cold  well-water  had  been  lifted 
to  her  burning  lips." 

Reserved,  irreproachable,  by  temperament  ob- 
scure and  chilly,  it  was  long  before  Alfred  de 
Vigny  succumbed  to  the  tumult  of  the  senses. 
For  a  long  time  the  animated  and  extravagant 
actress  was  dazzled  by  the  mystical  adoration,  the 
respectful  and  solemn  worship  of  her  new  admirer. 
She  was  accustomed  to  the  rough  way  of  the  world, 
but  she  had  never  been  loved  like  this  before.  She 
became  hypnotised  at  last  by  the  gaze  of  Alfred  de 
Vigny  fixed  upon  her  in  what  Sainte-Beuve  has 
called  "a  perpetual  seraphic  hallucination."  A 
transformation  appeared  to  come  over  herself. 
She  fell  in  love  with  Vigny  as  completely  as  the 
poet  had  with  her,  and  she  became,  in  virtue  of 
the  transcendent  ductility  of  her  temperament  as 
an  actress,  a  temporary  copy  of  himself.  She 
was  all  reverie,  all  abstract  devotion,  and  the 
strange  pair  floated  through  the  stormy  life  of 
Paris,  a  marvel  to  all  beholders,  in  a  discreet  and 
delicate  rapture,  as  a  poet  with  his  muse,  as  a 
nun  with  her  brother.  This  ecstatic  relation 
continued  until  183 1,  and  during  these  years 
Alfred  de  Vigny  scarcely  wrote  anything  in  prose 
or  verse,  entirely  supported  by  the  exquisite  senti- 
ment of  his  attachment.  He  fulfilled  the  dream 
of  Pascal,  "Tant   plus  le   chemin   est  long  dans 

B 


i8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

I'amour,  tant  plus  un  esprit  d61icat  sent  de 
plaisir." 

The  circumstances  under  which  this  seraphic 
and  mystical  relation  came  to  an  end  have  but 
recently  beeen  made  public.  The  wonder  is  that 
Madame  Dorval,  so  romantic,  violent,  and  suscep- 
tible, should  have  been  willing  so  long  to  preserve 
such  an  idyllic  or  even  angelic  reserve.  George 
Sand,  who  saw  her  at  this  time,  selects  other  adjec- 
tives for  her,  "  Oh  !  naive  et  passionn^e,  et  jeune  et 
suave,  et  tremblante  et  terrible."  But  she  deter- 
mined at  last  to  play  the  comedy  of  renunciation 
no  longer,  and  Vigny's  subtlety  and  platonism 
were  burned  up  like  grass  in  the  flame  of  her 
seduction.  He  was  Eloa,  as  I  have  said ;  she  was 
the  tenebrous  and  sinister  archangel,  and  he  sank 
in  the  ecstatic  crisis  of  her  will.  For  the  next  few 
years,  Mme.  Dorval  possessed  the  life  of  the  poet, 
swayed  his  instincts,  inspired  his  intellect.  His 
genius  enjoyed  a  new  birth  in  her  ;  she  brought 
about  a  palingenesis  of  his  talent,  and  during  this 
period  he  produced  some  of  the  most  powerful 
and  the  most  solid  of  his  works. 

Under  the  influence  of  these  novel  and  violent 
emotions,  Vigny  began  at  the  close  of  1831  to 
write  Stello;  he  composed  it  in  great  heat,  and  it 
was  finished  in  January,  1832,  and  immediately 
sent  to  press.  Stello  is  a  book  which  has  been 
curiously  neglected  by  modern  students  of  the 
poet  ;  it  is  highly  characteristic  of  the  author  at 
this  stage  of  his  career,  and  deserves  a  closer 
examination  than  it  usually  receives.  It  is  a  triad 
of  episodes  set  in  a  sort  of  Shandean  framework 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  19 

of  fantastic  prose ;  the  influence  of  Sterne  is 
clearly  visible  in  the  form  of  it.  It  occupies  a 
single  night,  and  presents  but  two  characters. 
Stello,  a  very  happy  and  successful  poet,  wealthy 
and  applauded,  nevertheless  suffers  from  the 
"  spleen."  In  a  fit  of  the  blue  devils,  he  is 
stretched  on  his  sofa,  the  victim  of  a  headache, 
which  is  described  in  miraculous  and  Brobdig- 
nagian  terms.  A  mystic  personage,  the  Black 
Doctor,  a  physician  of  souls,  attends  the  sufferer, 
and  engages  him  in  conversation.  This  conver- 
sation is  the  book  called  Stello. 

The  Black  Doctor  will  distract  the  patient  by 
three  typical  anecdotes  of  poets,  who,  in  Words- 
worth's famous  phrase, 

"  began  in  gladness, 
But  thereof  came,  in  the  end,  despondency  and  madness." 

He  tells  a  story  of  a  mad  flea,  which  develops 
into  the  relation  of  the  sad  end  of  the  poet 
Gilbert.  To  this  follow  the  history  of  Chatter- 
ton,  and  an  exceedingly  full  and  close  chronicle 
of  the  last  days  of  Andr6  Ch^nier.  The  friends 
converse  on  the  melancholy  topic  of  the  rooted 
antipathy  which  exists  between  the  Man  of 
Action  and  the  Man  of  Art.  Poets  are  the 
eternal  helots  of  society ;  modern  life  results 
in  the  perpetual  ostracism  of  genius.  Stello,  in 
whom  Alfred  de  Vigny  obviously  speaks,  is 
roused  to  indignation  at  the  charge  of  inutility 
constantly  brought  against  the  fine  arts,  and 
charges  Plato  with  having  given  the  original 
impetus  to  this   heresy   by   his  exclusion   of   the 


20  FRENCH    PROFILES 

poets  from  his  republic.  But  the  Black  Doctor 
is  inclined  to  accept  Plato's  view,  and  to  hold  that 
the  great  mistake  is  made  by  the  men  of  reverie 
themselves  in  attempting  to  act  as  social  forces. 
The  friends  agree  that  the  propaganda  of  the 
future  must  be  to  separate  the  Life  Poetic  from 
the  Life  Politic  as  with  a  chasm. 

Then  in  eloquent  and  romantic  pages  the  law 
of  conduct  is  laid  down.  The  poet  must  not 
mix  with  the  world,  but  in  solitude  and  liberty 
must  withdraw  that  he  may  accomplish  his  mis- 
sion. He  must  firmly  repudiate  the  too  facile 
ambitions  and  enterprises  of  active  life.  He 
must  keep  firmly  before  him  the  image  of  those 
martyrs  of  the  mind,  Gilbert,  Chatterton,  and 
Ch^nier.  He  must  say  to  his  fellow  men,  what 
the  swallows  say  as  they  gather  under  our  eaves, 
"  Protect  us,  but  touch  us  not."  Such  is  the 
teaching  of  Stelloy  a  book  extraordinary  in  its 
own  day,  and  vibrating  still  ;  a  book  in  which 
for  the  first  time  was  preached,  without  the  least 
reserve,  the  doctrines  of  the  aristocracy  of  ima- 
gination and  of  the  illusiveness  of  any  theory  of 
equality  between  the  artist  and  the  common  pro- 
letariat of  mankind.  Alfred  de  Vigny  wrote  Stel/o 
in  a  passion  of  sincerity,  and  it  is  in  its  pages  that 
we  first  see  him  retiring  into  his  famous  "ivory 
tower."  It  is  the  credo  of  a  poet  for  whom  the 
charges  of  arrogance  and  narrowness  do  not  exist; 
who  doubted  as  little  about  the  supremacy  of 
genius  as  an  anointed  emperor  does  about  Right 
Divine. 

The  stage  now  attracted  Vigny.     In  the  summer 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  21 

of  1 83 1  he  wrote,  and  in  1834  brought  out  on  the 
stage  of  the  Second  Theatre  Frangais,  La  Marechale 
d AncrCy  a  melodrama  in  prose,  of  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  poison  and  dagger 
piece,  thick  with  the  intrigues  of  Concini  and 
Borgia.  In  May  1833  he  produced  Quitte  pour  la 
Peur,  a  trifle  in  one  act.  These  unimportant 
works  lead  us  up  to  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
famous  of  all  Vigny's  writings,  the  epoch-making 
tragedy  of  Chatterton.  This  drama,  which  is  in 
very  simple  prose,  was  the  work  of  seventeen 
nights  in  June  1834,  when  the  poet  was  at  the 
summit  of  his  infatuation  for  Madame  Dorval.  The 
subject  of  Chatterton  had  been  already  sketched  in 
Stelloy  and  the  play  is  really  nothing  more  than 
one  of  the  episodes  in  that  romance,  expanded 
and  dramatised.  Vigny  published  Chatterton  with 
a  preface  which  should  be  carefully  read  if  we  are 
to  appreciate  the  point  of  view  from  which  the 
poet  desired  his  play  to  be  observed. 

The  subject  of  Chatterton  is  the  perpetual 
and  inevitable  martyrdom  of  the  Poet,  against 
whom  all  the  rest  of  the  successful  world  nourishes 
an  involuntary  resentment,  because  he  will  take  no 
part  in  the  game  of  action.  Vigny  tells  the  story 
of  the  young  English  writer,  with  certain  neces- 
sary modifications.  He  represents  him  as  a  lodger 
at  the  inn  of  John  and  Kitty  Bell,  where  at  the  end 
he  tears  up  his  manuscripts  and  commits  suicide. 
The  English  reader  must  try  to  forgive  and  forget 
the  lapses  against  local  colour.  Chatterton  has  been 
a  spendthrift  at  Oxford,  and  has  friends  who  hunt 
the  wild  boar  on  Primrose  Hill ;  Vigny  keeps  to 


22  FRENCH    PROFILES 

history  only  when  it  suits  him  to  do  so.  These 
eccentricities  did  not  interfere  with  the  frenetic 
joy  with  which  the  play  was  received  by  the 
young  writers  and  artists  of  Paris,  and  they  ought 
not  to  disturb  us  now.  Chatterton  drinks  opium 
in  the  last  scene,  because  a  newspaper  has  said 
that  he  is  not  the  author  of  the  "  Rowley  Poems," 
and  because  he  has  been  offered  the  situation  of 
first  flunkey  to  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London.  But 
these  things  are  a  symbol. 

Much  of  the  plot  of  Chatterton  may  strike 
the  modern  reader  as  mere  extravagance.  The 
logic  of  the  piece  is,  nevertheless,  complete  and 
highly  effective.  It  was  the  more  strikingly  effec- 
tive when  it  was  produced  because  no  drama  of 
pure  thought  was  known  to  the  audience  which 
witnessed  it.  Classics  and  romantics  alike  filled 
their  stage  with  violent  action  ;  this  was  a  play  of 
poignant  interest,  but  that  interest  was  entirely  in- 
tellectual. The  mystical  passion  of  Chatterton  and 
Kitty  Bell  is  subtle,  silent,  expressed  in  thoughts; 
here  were  brought  before  the  footlights  "  infinite 
passion  and  the  pain  of  finite  hearts  that  yearn  " 
without  a  sigh.  It  is  a  marvellous  tribute  to  genius 
that  such  a  play  could  succeed,  yet  it  was  precisely 
in  the  huge  psychological  soliloquy  in  the  third 
act — where  the  danger  seemed  greatest — that  suc- 
cess was  most  eminent.  When  the  audience  lis- 
tened to  Chatterton  murmuring  in  his  garret,  with 
the  thick  fog  at  the  window,  all  the  cold  and 
hunger  supported  by  pride  alone,  and  when  they 
listened  to  the  tremendous  words  in  which  the 
pagan  soul  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  speaks  through  the 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  23 

stoic  boy,  their  emotion  was  so  poignant  as  to  be 
insupportable. 

The  Poet  as  the  imaginative  pariah — that  is  the 
theme  of  Chatterton ;  the  man  of  ideaUsm  crushed 
by  a  materiaUstic  society.  It  is  a  case  of  romantic 
neurosis,  faced  without  shrinking.  Chatterton,  the 
dramatist  admits,  is  suffering  from  a  malady  of 
the  mind.  But  why,  on  that  account,  should  he 
be  crushed  out  of  existence  ?  Why  should  there 
be  no  pity  for  the  infirmities  of  inspiration  ?  Has 
the  poet  really  no  place  in  the  state  ?  Is  not  the 
fact  that  he  "reads  in  the  stars  the  pathway  that 
the  finger  of  God  is  pointing  out "  reason  enough 
for  granting  him  the  trifle  that  he  craves,  just 
leisure  and  a  little  bread  ?  Why  does  the  man 
of  action  grudge  the  inspired  dreamer  his  reverie 
and  the  necessary  food  ?  Everybody  in  the  world 
is  right,  it  appears,  except  the  poets.  I  do  not 
know  that  it  has  ever  been  suggested  that,  in  his 
picture  of  Chatterton,  Vigny  was  thinking  of  the 
poet,  H6g6sippe  Moreau,  who,  in  1833,  was  in 
hospital,  and  who  eminently  "  n'etait  pas  de  ceux 
qui  se  laissent  prot^ger  ais^ment." 

Chatterton  is  Alfred  de  Vigny's  one  dramatic 
success.  Its  form  is  extremely  original ;  it  expresses 
with  great  fulness  one  side  of  the  temperament  of 
the  author,  and  it  suits  the  taste  of  the  young  artist 
not  only  in  that  but  in  every  age.  It  is  written 
with  simplicity,  although  adorned  here  and  there, 
as  by  a  jewel,  with  an  occasional  startling  image, 
as  where  the  Quaker  (a  chorus  needed  because  the 
passion  of  Chatterton  and  Kitty  is  voiceless)  says 
that  "the  peace  that  reigns  around  you  has  been 


24  FRENCH   PROFILES 

as  dangerous  for  the  spirit  of  this  dreamer  as  sleep 
would  be  beneath  the  white  tuberose."  What- 
ever is  forgotten,  Chatterton  must  be  remembered, 
and  in  each  generation  fresh  young  pulses  will 
beat  to  its  generous  and  hopeless  fervour.  Vigny 
was  writing  little  verse  at  this  time,  but  the  curious 
piece  called  "  Paris :  Elevation "  belongs  to  the 
year  1834,  and  is  interesting  as  a  link  between 
the  otherwise  unrelated  poetry  of  his  youth  and 
the  chain  of  philosophical  apologues  in  which  his 
career  as  a  poet  was  finally  to  culminate.  But  his 
main  interest  at  this  time  was  in  prose. 

Tenacity  of  vision  was  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  Vigny's  characteristics.  When  an  experi- 
ence had  once  made  its  impression  upon  him,  this 
became  deeper  and  more  vivid  as  the  years  went 
on.  He  concealed  it,  he  brooded  on  it,  and  sud- 
denly the  seed  shot  up  and  broke  in  the  perfect 
blossom  of  imaginative  writing.  Hence  we  need 
not  be  surprised  that  the  military  adventures  of 
his  earliest  years,  when  the  yellow  curls  fell  round 
the  candid  blue  eyes  of  the  boy  as  he  rode  in  his 
magnificent  scarlet  uniform,  although  long  put  aside, 
were  not  forgotten.  In  the  summer  of  1835,  with 
that  curious  activity  in  creation  which  always  fol- 
lowed his  motionless  months  of  reverie,  Alfred  de 
Vigny  suddenly  set  about  and  rapidly  carried 
through  the  composition  of  the  finest  of  his  prose 
works,  the  admirable  classic  known  as  Grandeur  et 
Servitude  Militaires.  The  subject  of  this  book  is 
the  illusion  of  mihtary  glory  as  exemplified  in 
three  episodes  of  the  great  war.  The  form  of  the 
volume  is  very  notable ;  its  stories  rest  in  an  auto- 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  25 

biographical  setting,  and  it  was  long  supposed  that 
this  also  was  fiction.  But  a  letter  has  recently 
been  discovered,  written  to  a  friend  while  the 
Grandeur  et  Servitude  was  being  composed,  in  which 
the  author  says,  categorically,  "  wherever  I  have 
written  'I,'  what  I  relate  is  the  truth.  I  was  at 
Vincennes  when  the  poor  adjutant  died.  I  saw 
on  the  road  to  Belgium  a  cart  driven  by  an  old 
commander  of  a  battalion.  It  was  I  who  galloped 
along  smgxngjoconde."  This  testimony  adds  great 
value  to  the  delightful  setting  of  the  three  stories, 
Laurette,  La  Veillee  de  Vincennes,  and  La  Canne  de 
Jonc.  It  is  the  confession  of  a  sensitive  spirit, 
striking  the  note  of  the  disappointment  of  the 
age. 

Laurette  is  an  experience  of  181 5,  in  which  a 
tale  of  1797  is  told;  the  poet  makes  a  poignant 
appeal  to  the  feelings  by  relating  a  savage  crime 
of  the  Directory.  A  blunt  sea  captain  is  ordered 
to  take  a  very  young  man  and  his  child-wife  to 
the  tropics,  and  on  a  certain  day  to  open  a  sealed 
letter.  He  becomes  exceedingly  attached  to  the 
charming  pair  of  lovers,  but  when  at  last  the  letter 
is  opened,  he  finds  that  he  is  instructed  to  shoot 
the  husband  for  a  supposed  political  offence.  This 
he  does,  being  under  the  "  servitude  "  of  duty,  and 
the  little  wife  goes  mad.  Nothing  can  exceed  the 
exquisite  simplicity  of  the  scenes  on  shipboard,  and 
the  whole  narrative  is  conducted  with  a  masterly 
and  almost  sculptural  reserve.  The  moral  of  Lau- 
rette is  the  illusion  of  pushing  the  sentiment  of  duty 
to  its  last  and  most  inhuman  consequences. 

Somewhat  later  experiences  in  Vigny's  life  inspire 


26  FRENCH   PROFILES 

La  Veillee  de  VincenneSy  a  story  of  1819.  This  epi- 
sode opens  with  a  delicious  picture  of  a  summer 
evening  in  the  fortress  before  the  review,  the  soldiers 
lounging  about  in  groups,  the  white  hen  of  the  regi- 
ment strutting  across  the  courtyard  in  her  scarlet 
aigrette  and  her  silver  collar.  It  is  full  of  those 
marvellous  sudden  images  in  which  Vigny  delights, 
phrases  that  take  possession  of  the  fancy  ;  such  as, 
"  Je  sentais  quelque  chose  dans  ma  pens^e,  comme 
une  tache  dans  une  emeraude." 

As  a  story  La  Veillee  de  Vincennes  is  not  so  in- 
teresting as  its  companions,  but  as  an  illustration 
of  the  poet's  reflection  upon  life,  it  has  an  extreme 
value.  The  theme  is  the  illusion  of  military  excite- 
ment ;  the  soldier  only  escapes  ennui  by  the  mag- 
nificent disquietude  of  danger,  and  in  periods  of 
peace  he  lacks  this  tonic.  The  curious  and  quite 
disconnected  narrative  of  the  accidental  blowing 
up  of  the  powder  magazine,  towards  the  close  of 
this  tale,  is  doubtless  drawn  directly  from  the  ex- 
perience of  Vigny,  who  narrates  it  in  a  manner 
which  is  almost  a  prediction  of  that  of  Tolstoi. 

In  La  Canne  de  J  one  we  have  the  illusion  of 
active  glory.  In  the  military  life,  when  it  is  not 
stagnant,  there  is  too  much  violence  of  action,  not 
space  enough  for  reflection.  The  moral  of  this 
story  of  disappointment  in  the  person  of  Napoleon 
is  that  we  should  devote  ourselves  to  principles 
and  not  to  men.  There  are  two  magnificent  scenes 
in  La  Canne  de  Jonc,  the  one  in  which  the  Pope  con- 
fronts Napoleon  with  the  cry  of  "  Commediante  !  " 
the  other  in  which  the  author  pays  a  noble  tribute 
to  Collingwood,  and   paints  that  great  enemy  of 


ALFRED    DE   VIGNY  27 

France  as  a  hero  of  devotion  to  public  duty.  The 
whole  of  this  book  is  worthy  of  close  attention.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  distinguished  in  modern  litera- 
ture. Nothing  could  have  been  more  novel  than 
this  exposure  to  the  French  of  the  pitiful  fallacies 
of  their  military  glory,  of  the  hollowness  of  vows 
of  poverty  and  obedience  blindly  made  to  power, 
whose  only  design  was  to  surround  itself  by  a  body- 
guard of  gladiators.  Of  the  reserve  and  sobriety 
of  emotion  in  Grandeur  et  Servitude  Militaires,  and  of 
the  limpid,  delicate  elegance  of  its  style,  there  can- 
not be  any  question.  It  will  be  a  joy  to  readers 
of  refinement  as  long  as  the  French  language 
endures. 

At  the  close  of  1835  Alfred  de  Vigny  made  the 
distressing  discovery — he  was  the  only  member  of 
the  circle  who  had  remained  oblivious  of  the  fact 
— that  Madame  Dorval  was  flagrantly  unfaithful  to 
him.  He  became  aware  that  she  was  in  intrigue  with 
no  less  a  personage  than  the  boisterous  Alexandre 
Dumas.  Recent  investigations  have  thrown  an 
ugly  light  on  this  humiliating  and  painful  incident. 
Wounded  mortally  in  his  pride  and  in  his  passion, 
he  felt,  as  he  says,  "the  earth  give  way  under  his 
feet."  He  was  from  this  time  forth  dead  to  the 
world,  and,  in  the  fine  phrase  of  M.  Pal^ologue, 
he  withdrew  into  his  own  intellect  as  into  "  an 
impenetrable  Thebaid  where  he  could  be  alone  in 
the  presence  of  his  own  thoughts."  Alfred  de 
Vigny  survived  this  blow  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  but  as  a  hermit  and  a  stranger  among 
the  people. 


28  FRENCH    PROFILES 


III 

When  Alfred  de  Vigny  perceived  the  treason  of 
Madame  Dorval  in  December,  1835,  his  active  life 
ceased.  Something  snapped  in  him — the  chords  of 
illusion, of  artistic  ambition, of  the  hope  of  happiness. 
He  never  attempted  to  forgive  the  deceiver,  and 
he  never  forgave  woman  in  her  person.  His  pes- 
simism grew  upon  him  ;  he  lost  all  interest  in  the 
public  and  in  his  friends ;  after  a  brief  political  effort 
he  sank  into  a  soundless  isolation.  He  possessed  a 
country  house,  called  Le  Maine-Giraud,  in  the  west 
of  France,  and  thither  he  withdrew,  absorbed  in  the 
care  of  his  invalid  wife,  and  in  the  cultivation  of  his 
thoughts.  His  voice  was  scarcely  heard  any  more 
in  French  literature,  and  gradually  he  grew  to  be 
forgotten.  The  louder  and  more  active  talents  of 
his  contemporaries  filled  up  the  void  ;  Alfred  de 
Vigny  glided  into  silence,  and  was  not  missed. 
During  the  last  twenty-eight  years  of  his  existence, 
on  certain  rare  occasions,  Vigny's  intensity  of 
dream,  of  impassioned  reverie,  found  poetical  re- 
lief. When  he  died,  ten  poems  of  various  length 
were  discovered  among  his  papers,  and  these  were 
published  in  1864,  as  a  very  slender  volume  called 
Les  Destinies,  by  his  executor,  Louis  Ratisbonne. 

Several  of  these  posthumous  pieces  are  dated, 
and  the  earliest  of  them  seems  to  be  La  Colere  de 
Samson,  written  in  April  1839,  when  the  Vignys 
were  staying  with  the  Earl  of  Kilmorey  at  Shav- 
ington  Park  in  Shropshire.  It  is  a  curious  proof 
of  the  intensity  with  which  Alfred  de  Vigny  con- 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  29 

centrated  himself  on  his  vision  that  this  terrible 
poem,  one  of  the  most  powerful  in  the  French 
language,  should  have  been  written  in  England 
during  a  country  visit.  It  would  seem  that  for 
more  than  three  years  the  wounded  poet  had  been 
brooding  on  his  wrongs.  Suddenly,  without  warn- 
ing, the  storm  breaks  in  this  tremendous  picture 
of  the  deceit  of  woman  and  the  helpless  strength 
of  man,  in  verses  the  melody  and  majesty  of  which 
are  only  equalled  by  their  poignant  agony : — 

"  Toujours  voir  serpenter  la  vip^re  dorde 
Qui  se  traine  en  sa  fange  et  s'y  croit  ignoree  ; 
Toujours  ce  compagnon  dont  le  coeur  n'est  pas  sur, 
La  Femme,  enfant  malade  et  douze  fois  impur  ! 
Toujours  mettre  sa  force  k  garder  sa  colore 
Dans  son  coeur  offense,  comme  en  un  sanctuaire, 
D'ou  le  feu  s'echappant  irait  tout  d^vorer ; 
Interdire  k  ses  yeux  de  voir  ou  de  pleurer, 
C'est  trop  !     Dieu,  s'il  le  veut,  peut  balayer  ma  cendre, 
J'ai  donne  mon  secret,  Dalila  va  le  vendre." 

He  buried  the  memory  of  Madame  Dorval  under 
La  Colere  de  Samson,  as  a  volcano  buries  a  guilty 
city  beneath  a  shower  of  burning  ashes,  and  he 
turned  to  the  contemplation  of  the  world  as  he 
saw  it  under  the  soft  light  of  the  gentle  despair 
which  now  more  and  more  completely  invaded 
his  spirit. 

The  genius  of  Alfred  de  Vigny  as  the  philo- 
sophical exponent  of  this  melancholy  composure 
is  displayed  in  the  noble  and  sculptural  elegy, 
named  Les  Desiine'es,  composed  in  ierza  ritna  in 
1849;  but  in  a  still  more  natural  and  personal  way 
in  a  poem  which  is  among  the  most  fascinating 
that  he  has  left  behind  him,  La  Maison  du  Berger. 


30  FRENCH   PROFILES 

Here  he  adopted  a  stanzaic  form  closely  analogous 
to  rime  royal,  and  this  adds  to  the  curiously  English 
impression,  as  of  some  son  of  Wordsworth  or 
brother  of  Matthew  Arnold,  which  this  poem  pro- 
duces ;  it  may  make  a  third  in  our  memories  with 
"  Laodamia  "  and  "  The  Scholar-Gipsy."  Vigny 
describes  in  it  the  mode  in  which  the  soul  goes 
burdened  by  the  weight  of  life,  like  a  wounded 
eagle  in  captivity,  dragging  at  its  chain.  The  poet 
must  escape  from  this  obsession  of  the  world  ;  he 
finds  a  refuge  in  the  shepherd's  cabin  on  wheels, 
far  from  all  mankind,  on  a  vast,  undulating  surface 
of  moorland.  Here  he  meditates  on  man's  futility 
and  fever,  on  the  decline  of  the  dignity  of  conduct, 
on  the  public  disdain  of  immortal  things.  It  is 
remarkable  that  at  this  lofty  station,  no  modern 
institution  is  too  prosaic  for  his  touch  ;  his  treat- 
ment of  the  objects  and  methods  of  the  day  is 
magnificently  simple,  and  he  speaks  of  railways  as 
an  ancient  Athenian  might  if  restored  to  breath  and 
vision.  A  certain  mystical  Eva  is  evoked,  and  a 
delicate  analysis  of  woman  follows.  From  the 
solitude  of  the  shepherd's  wheeled  house  the 
exile  looks  out  on  life  and  sees  the  face  of  nature. 
But  here  he  parts  with  Wordsworth  and  the  pan- 
theists ;  for  in  nature,  also,  he  finds  illusion  and 
the  reed  that  runs  into  the  hand  : — 

"  Vivez,  froide  Nature,  et  revivez  sans  cesse 
Sur  nos  pieds,  sur  nos  fronts,  puisque  c'est  votre  loi  ; 
Vivez,  et  dedaignez,  si  vous  etes  ddesse, 
L'homme,  humble  passager,  qui  dut  vous  ^tre  un  roi ; 
Plus  que  tout  votre  r^gne  et  que  ses  splendeurs  vaines, 
J'aime  la  majesty  des  souffrances  humaines  ; 
Vous  ne  recevrez  pas  un  cri  d'amour  de  moi." 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  31 

Finally,  it  is  in  pity,  in  the  tender  patience  of 
human  sympathy,  in  the  love  which  is  "  taciturne 
et  toujours  menace,"  that  the  melancholy  poet 
finds  the  sole  solace  of  a  broken  and  uncertain 
existence. 

It  is  in  the  same  connection  that  we  must  read 
La  Sauvage  and  La  Mort  du  Loup,  poems  which 
belong  to  the  year  1843.  The  close  of  the  second 
of  these  presents  us  with  the  pessimistic  philosophy 
of  Vigny  in  its  most  concise  and  penetrating  form. 
The  poet  has  described  in  his  admirable  way  the 
scene  of  a  wolf  hunt  in  the  woods  of  a  chateau 
where  he  has  been  staying,  and  the  death  of  the 
wolf,  while  defending  his  mate  and  her  cubs.  He 
closes  his  picture  with  these  reflections : — 

"  Comment  on  doit  quitter  la  vie  et  tous  ses  maux, — 
C'est  vous  que  le  savez,  sublimes  animaux  ! 
A  voir  ce  que  I'on  fut  sur  terre  et  ce  qu'on  laisse, 
Seul  le  silence  est  grand  :  tout  le  reste  est  faiblesse ; 
Ah  !  je  t'ai  bien  compris,  sauvage  voyageur, 
Et  ton  dernier  regard  m'est  alle  jusqu'au  cceur  ! 
II  disait :  '  Si  tu  peux,  fais  que  ton  ime  arrive 
A  force  de  rester  studieuse  et  pensive, 
Jusqu'  k  ce  haut  degre  de  stoique  fiertd 
Oil,  naissant  dans  les  bois,  j'ai  tout  d'abord  montd 
G^mir,  pleurer,  prier,  est  ^galement  liche. 
Fais  energiquement  ta  longue  et  lourde  t^che 
Dans  la  voie  oti  le  sort  a  voulu  t'appeler — 
Puis,  apr^s,  comme  moi,  souffre  et  meurs  sans  parler.' "  ' 

It  was  in  nourishing  such  lofty  thoughts  as  these 
that  Alfred  de  Vigny  lived  the  life  of  a  country 
gentleman  at  Maine-Giraud,  reading,  dreaming, 
cultivating  his  vines,  sitting  for  hours  by  the  bed- 
side of  his  helpless  Lydia. 

^  We  have  here,  doubtless,  a  reminiscence  of  Byron  and   Childe 
Harold, — "  And  the  wolf  dies  in  silence." 


32  FRENCH    PROFILES 

"  Silence  is  Poetry  itself  for  me,"  Alfred  de 
Vigny  says  in  one  of  his  private  letters,  and  as 
time  went  on  he  had  scarcely  energy  enough 'to 
write  down  his  thoughts.  When  he  braced  him- 
self to  the  effort  of  doing  so,  as  when  in  1858  he 
contrived  to  compose  La  Bouteille  a  la  Mer,  his 
accent  was  found  to  be  as  clear  and  his  music  as 
vivid  and  resonant  as  ever.  The  reason  was  that 
although  he  was  so  solitary  and  silent,  the  labour 
of  the  brain  was  unceasing  ;  under  the  ashes  the 
fire  burned  hot  and  red.  He  has  a  very  curious 
phrase  about  the  action  of  his  mind  ;  he  says, 
"  Mon  cerveau,  toujours  mobile,  travaille  et  tour- 
billonne  sous  mon  front  immobile  avec  une  vitesse 
effrayante  ;  des  mondes  passent  devant  mes  yeux 
entre  un  mot  qu'on  me  dit  et  le  mot  que  je  re- 
ponds."  Dumas,  who  was  peculiarly  predisposed 
to  miscomprehend  Vigny,  could  not  reconcile  him- 
self, in  younger  days,  to  his  "  immateriality,"  to 
what  another  observer  called  his  "  perpetual 
seraphic  hallucination";  after  1835,  this  discon- 
certing remoteness  and  abstraction  grew  upon  the 
poet  so  markedly  as  to  cut  him  off  from  easy 
contact  with  other  men.  But  his  isolation,  even 
his  pessimism,  failed  to  harden  him  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, by  a  divine  indulgence,  they  increased  his 
sensibility,  the  enthusiasm  of  his  pity,  his  passion 
for  the  welfare  of  others. 

Death  found  him  at  last,  and  in  one  of  its  most 
cruel  forms.  Soon  after  he  had  passed  his  sixtieth 
year,  he  began  to  be  subjected  to  vague  pains, 
which  became  intenser,  and  which  presently  proved 
to  be   the   symptoms   of   cancer.      He   bore  this 


ALFRED    DE    VIGNY  33 

final  trial  with  heroic  fortitude,  and  as  the 
physical  suffering  grew  more  extreme,  the  intel- 
lectual serenity  prevailed  above  the  anguish.  In 
the  very  last  year  of  his  life,  the  poetical  faculty 
awakened  in  him  again,  and  he  wrote  Les  Oracles, 
the  incomparably  solemn  and  bold  apologue  of 
Le  Mont  des  Oliviers,  and  the  mystical  ode  entitled 
LEsprit  Pur.  This  last  poem  closed  with  the 
ominous  words,  "  et  pour  moi  c'est  assez."  On 
September  17,  1863,  his  soul  was  released  at 
length  from  the  tortured  and  exhausted  body, 
and  the  weary  Stello  was  at  peace. 

It  is  not  to  be  pretended  that  the  poetry  of 
Alfred  de  Vigny  is  to  every  one's  taste.  He  was 
too  indifferent  to  the  public,  too  austere  and 
arrogant  in  his  address,  to  attract  the  masses, 
and  to  them  he  will  remain  perpetually  unknown. 
But  he  is  a  writer,  in  his  best  prose  as  well  as  in 
the  greater  part  of  his  scanty  verse,  who  has 
only  to  become  familiar  to  a  reader  susceptible 
to  beauty,  to  grow  more  and  more  beloved.  The 
other  poets  of  his  age  were  fluent  and  tumultuous  ; 
Alfred  de  Vigny  was  taciturn,  stoical,  one  who  had 
lost  faith  in  glory,  in  life,  perhaps  even  in  himself. 
While  the  flute  and  the  trumpet  sounded,  his 
hunter's  horn,  blown  far  away  in  the  melancholy 
woodland,  could  scarcely  raise  an  echo  in  the  heart 
of  a  warrior  or  banqueter.  But  those  who  visit 
Vigny  in  the  forest  will  be  in  no  hurry  to  return. 
He  shall  entertain  them  there  with  such  high 
thoughts  and  such  proud  music  that  they  will  follow 
him  wherever  his  dream  may  take  him.  They  may 
admit  that   he  is  sometimes  hard,  often  obscure, 

C 


34  FRENCH    PROFILES 

always  in  a  certain  facile  sense  unsympathetic,  but 
they  will  find  their  taste  for  more  redundant 
melodies  than  his  a  good  deal  marred  for  the 
future.  And  some  among  them,  if  they  are  sin- 
cere, will  admit  that,  so  far  as  they  are  con- 
cerned, he  is  the  most  majestic  poet  whom  France 
produced  in  the  rich  course  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 


1903. 


MADEMOISELLE  AISSE 

Literature  presents  us  with  no  more  pathetic 
figure  of  a  waif  or  stray  than  that  of  the  poor 
little  Circassian  slave  whom  her  friends  called 
Mademoiselle  Aiss6.  But  interesting  and  touching 
as  is  the  romance  of  her  history,  it  is  surpassed  by 
the  rare  distinction  of  her  character  and  the  delicacy 
of  her  mind.  Placed  in  the  centre  of  the  most  de- 
praved society  of  modern  Europe,  protected  from 
ruin  by  none  of  those  common  bulwarks  which 
proved  too  frail  to  sustain  the  high-born  virtues  of 
the  Tencins  and  the  Parabdres,  exposed  by  her 
wit  and  beauty  to  all  the  treachery  of  fashionable 
Paris  unabashed,  this  little  Oriental  orphan  pre- 
served an  exquisite  refinement  of  nature,  a  con- 
science as  sensitive  as  a  nerve.  If  she  had  been 
devote,  if  she  had  retired  to  a  nunnery,  the  lesson 
of  her  life  would  have  been  less  wholesome  than 
it  is  ;  we  may  go  further  and  admit  that  it  would 
be  less  poignant  than  it  is  but  for  the  single  frailty 
of  her  conduct.  She  sinned  once,  and  expiated 
her  sin  with  tears  ;  but  in  an  age  when  love  was 
reduced  to  a  caprice  and  intrigue  governed  by 
cynical  maxims,  Aiss^'s  fault,  her  solitary  abandon- 
ment to  a  sincere  passion,  almost  takes  the 
proportions  of  a  virtue.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  some- 
where recommended  Swiss  travellers  who  find 
themselves  physically  exhausted  by  the  pomp  of 

35 


36  FRENCH   PROFILES 

Alpine  landscape,  to  sink  on  their  knees  and 
concentrate  their  attention  on  the  petals  of  a 
rock-rose.  In  comparison  with  the  vast  expanse 
of  French  literature  the  pretensions  of  Aisse  are 
little  more  than  those  of  a  flower,  but  she  has  no 
small  share  of  a  flower's  perfume  and  beauty. 

In  her  lifetime  Mademoiselle  Aiss6  associated 
with  some  of  the  great  writers  of  her  time.  Yet 
if  any  one  had  told  her  that  she  would  live  in 
literature  with  such  friends  as  Montesquieu  and 
Destouches  her  modesty  would  have  been  over- 
whelmed with  confusion.  She  made  no  preten- 
sions to  being  a  blue-stocking  ;  she  would  have 
told  us  that  she  did  not  know  how  to  write  a  page. 
An  exact  coeval  of  hers  was  the  sarcastic  and 
brilliant  young  man  who  called  himself  Voltaire  ; 
he  was  strangely  gentle  to  Aisse,  but  she  would 
have  been  amazed  to  learn  that  he  would  long 
survive  her,  and  would  annotate  her  works  in  his 
old  age.  Her  works !  Her  only  works,  she 
would  have  told  us,  were  the  coloured  embroideries 
with  which,  in  some  tradition  of  a  Turkish  taste, 
she  adorned  her  own  rooms  in  the  Hotel  Ferriol. 
Notwithstanding  all  this,  no  history  of  French 
literature  would  have  any  pretensions  to  complete- 
ness if  it  omitted  Aiss^'s  name.  Among  all  the 
memoir-writers,  letter-writers,  and  pamphleteers 
of  the  early  eighteenth  century  she  stands  in  some 
respects  pre-eminent.  As  a  correspondent  pure 
and  simple  there  is  a  significance  in  the  fact  that 
her  life  exactly  fills  the  space  between  the  death 
of  S6vign6,  which  occurred  when  Aiss6  was  about 
two  years  old,  and  the  birth  of  L'Espinasse,  which 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       37 

happened  a  few  months  before  Aiss^'s  death. 
During  this  period  of  nearly  forty  years  no 
woman  in  France  wrote  letters  which  could  be 
placed  beside  theirs  except  our  Circassian.  They 
form  a  singularly  interesting  trio  ;  and  if  Aiss6 
can  no  more  pretend  to  possess  the  breadth  of 
vision  and  rich  imagination  of  Madame  de  S6vign6 
than  to  command  the  incomparable  accent  of 
passion  which  cries  through  the  correspondence 
of  Mademoiselle  de  L'Espinasse,  she  has  qualities 
which  are  not  unworthy  to  be  named  with  these 
— an  exquisite  sincerity,  an  observation  of  men  and 
things  which  could  hardly  be  more  picturesque, 
a  note  of  pensive  and  thrilling  tenderness,  and  a 
candour  which  melts  the  very  soul  to  pity. 

In  the  winter  of  1697  or  spring  of  1698,  a 
dissipated  and  eccentric  old  bachelor,  Charles  de 
Ferriol,  Baron  d'Argental,  who  was  French  Envoy 
at  the  court  of  the  Grand  Vizier,  bought  a  little 
Circassian  child  of  about  four  years  old  in  one  of 
the  bazaars  of  Constantinople.  He  had  often 
bought  slaves  in  the  Turkish  market  before,  and 
not  to  the  honour  of  his  memory.  But  this  time 
he  was  actuated  by  a  genuine  kindly  impulse. 
He  was  fifty-one  years  of  age  ;  he  did  not  intend 
to  marry,  and  he  seems  to  have  thought  that  he 
would  supply  himself  with  a  beautiful  daughter 
for  the  care  of  his  old  age.  Sainte-Beuve,  with  his 
unfailing  intuition,  insisted  on  this  interpretation, 
and  since  his  essay  was  written,  in  1 846,  various 
documents  have  turned  up,  proving  beyond  a 
doubt  that  the  intentions  of  the  Envoy  were 
parental.     The  little  girl  said  that  her  name  was 


38  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Haidee.  She  preserved  in  later  life  an  impression 
of  a  large  house,  and  many  servants  running 
hither  and  thither.  Her  friends  agreed  to  con- 
sider her  as  the  daughter  of  a  Circassian  prince, 
and  the  very  large  price  (1500  livres)  which  M.  de 
Ferriol  paid  for  her,  as  well  as  the  singular  dis- 
tinction of  her  beauty,  to  some  extent  supports 
the  legend.  In  August  1698,  M.  de  Ferriol,  who 
had  held  temporary  missions  in  Turkey  for  seven 
years,  was  recalled  to  France,  to  be  sent  out  again 
as  French  ambassador  to  the  Porte  in  1699.  He 
brought  his  little  Circassian  orphan  with  him,  and 
placed  her  in  the  charge  of  his  sister-in-law, 
Madame  de  Ferriol,  in  Paris.  She  was  immedi- 
ately christened  as  Charlotte  Haidee,  but  she 
preserved  neither  of  these  names  in  ordinary  life  ; 
Charlotte  was  dropped  at  once,  and  Haidee  on 
the  lips  of  her  new  French  relations  became  the 
softer  Aisse. 

Aisse's  adopted  aunt,  as  we  may  call  her, 
Madame  de  Ferriol,  was  a  very  fair  average 
specimen  of  the  fashionable  lady  of  the  Regency. 
She  belonged  to  the  notorious  family  of  Tencin, 
whose  mark  on  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  so  ineffaceable.  Of  Madame  de  Ferriol 
it  may  be  said  by  her  defenders  that  she  was  not 
so  openly  scandalous  as  her  sister  the  Canoness, 
who  appears  in  a  very  curious  light  in  the  letters 
of  Aiss6.  Born  in  1674,  Madame  de  Ferriol  was 
still  quite  a  young  woman,  and  her  sons,  the 
Marquis  de  Pont-de-Veyle  and  Comte  d'Argental, 
were  little  children,  fit  to  become  the  playmates  of 
Aiss6.      Indeed    these    two    boys    were    regarded 


MADEMOISELLE   AISSE       39 

almost  as  the  Circassian's  brothers,  and  the  family 
documents  speak  of  all  three  as  "  nos  enfants." 
She  was  put  to  school — it  is  believed,  from  a 
phrase  of  her  own,  "  Je  viens  de  me  ressouvenir  " 
-^with  the  Nouvelles  Catholiques,  a  community 
of  nuns,  whose  house  was  a  few  doors  away  from 
the  Hotel  Ferriol,  and  there  for  a  few  years  we 
may  suppose  her  to  have  passed  the  happy  life  of 
a  child.  From  this  life  she  herself,  in  one  of  the 
most  charming  of  her  letters,  draws  aside  the 
curtain  for  a  moment.  In  1731  some  gossip 
accused  her  of  a  passion  for  the  Due  de  Gesvres, 
and  her  jealous  mentor  in  Geneva  wrote  to  know 
if  there  was  any  truth  in  the  report.  Aisse,  then 
about  thirty-seven  years  of  age,  wrote  back  as 
follows : — 

"  I  admit,  Madame,  notwithstanding  your  anger 
and  the  respect  which  I  owe  you,  that  I  have  had 
a  violent  fancy  for  M.  le  Due  de  Gesvres,  and 
that  I  even  carried  this  great  sin  to  confession. 
It  is  true  that  my  confessor  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  impose  any  penance  on  me.  I  was 
eight  years  old  when  this  passion  began,  and  at 
twelve  I  laughed  at  the  whole  affair,  not  that  I 
did  not  still  like  M.  de  Gesvres,  but  that  I  saw 
how  ludicrous  it  had  been  of  me  to  be  so  anxious 
to  be  talking  and  playing  in  the  garden  with  him 
and  his  brothers.  He  was  two  or  three  years  older 
than  I,  and  we  thought  ourselves  a  great  deal 
more  grown  up  than  the  rest.  We  liked  to  be 
conversing  while  the  others  were  playing  at  hide- 
and-seek.  We  set  up  for  reasonable  people  ;  we 
met  regularly  every  day  :  we  never  talked  about 


40  FRENCH    PROFILES 

love,  for  the  fact  was  that  neither  of  us  knew 
what  that  meant.  The  window  of  the  Httle 
drawing-room  opened  upon  a  balcony,  where  he 
often  came  ;  we  made  signs  to  each  other  ;  he 
took  us  out  to  see  the  fireworks,  and  often  to 
Saint  Ouen.  As  we  were  always  together,  the 
people  in  charge  of  us  began  to  joke  about  us  and 
it  came  to  the  ears  of  my  aga  (the  Ambassador), 
who,  as  you  can  imagine,  made  a  fine  romance 
out  of  all  this.  I  found  it  out  ;  it  distressed  me  ; 
I  thought  that,  as  a  discreet  person,  I  ought  to 
watch  my  own  behaviour,  and  the  result  was  that 
I  persuaded  myself  that  I  must  really  be  in  love 
with  M.  de  Gesvres.  I  was  devote,  and  went  to 
confession ;  I  first  mentioned  all  my  little  sins, 
and  then  I  had  to  mention  this  big  sin  ;  I  could 
scarcely  make  up  my  mind  to  do  so,  but  as  a  girl 
that  had  been  well  brought  up,  I  determined  to 
hide  nothing.  I  confessed  that  I  was  in  love  with 
a  young  man.  My  director  seemed  astonished  ; 
he  asked  me  how  old  he  was,  I  told  him  he  was 
eleven.  He  laughed,  and  told  me  that  there  was 
no  penance  for  that  sin ;  that  I  had  only  to  keep 
on  being  a  good  girl,  and  that  he  had  nothing 
more  to  say  to  me  for  the  time  being." 

It  is  like  a  page  of  Hans  Andersen  ;  there  is  the 
same  innocence,  the  same  suspicion  that  all  the 
world  may  not  be  so  innocent. 

The  incidents  of  the  early  womanhood  of  Aisse 
are  known  to  us  only  through  an  anonymous 
sketch  of  her  life,  printed  in  1787,  when  her 
Letters  first  appeared.  This  short  life,  which  has 
been  attributed  to  Mademoiselle  Rieu,  the  grand- 


MADEMOISELLE   AiSSE       41 

daughter  of  the  lady  to  whom  the  letters  were 
addressed,  informs  us  that  Aiss6  was  carefully 
educated,  so  far  as  the  head  went,  but  more  than 
neglected  in  the  lessons  of  the  heart.  "  From  the 
moment  when  Mademoiselle  Aiss6  began  to  lisp," 
says  this  rather  pedantic  memoir,  "  she  heard 
none  but  dangerous  maxims.  Surrounded  by 
voluptuous  and  intriguing  women,  she  was  con- 
stantly being  reminded  that  the  only  occupation 
of  a  woman  without  a  fortune  ought  to  be  to 
secure  one."  But  she  found  protectors.  The 
two  sons  of  Madame  de  Ferriol,  though  them- 
selves no  better  than  their  neighbours,  guarded 
her  as  though  she  had  really  been  their  sister  ; 
and  in  her  own  soul  there  were  no  germs  of  the 
fashionable  depravity.  When  she  was  seventeen, 
her  "  aga "  came  back  from  his  long  exile  in 
Constantinople,  broken  in  health,  even,  it  is  said, 
more  than  a  little  disturbed  in  intellect.  To  the 
annoyance  of  his  relatives  he  nourished  the  design 
of  being  made  a  cardinal ;  he  was  lodged,  for 
safety's  sake,  close  to  the  family  of  his  brother. 
From  Ferriol's  return  in  1 7 1 1  to  his  death  in 
1722,  we  have  considerable  difficulty  in  realising 
what  Aiss^'s  existence  was. 

There  is  some  reason  to  suppose  that  it  was 
Lord  Bolingbroke  who  first  perceived  the  excep- 
tional charm  of  Aissdi's  mind.  When  the  illus- 
trious EngHsh  exile  came  to  France  in  1 715,  he 
was  almost  immediately  drawn  into  the  society  of 
the  Hotel  Ferriol.  One  of  A'lsse's  kindest  friends 
was  that  wise  and  charming  woman,  the  Marquise 
de  Villette,  whom   Bolingbroke  somewhat  tardily 


42  FRENCH    PROFILES 

married  about  1720,  and  it  was  doubtless  through 
her  introduction  that  he  became  intimate  with 
Madame  de  Ferriol.  As  early  as  17 19  Boling- 
broke  writes  of  Aisse  as  of  an  intimate  friend,  and 
speaks  of  her  as  threatened  by  a  "  disadvantageous 
metamorphosis,"  by  which  he  probably  refers  to 
an  attack  of  the  small-pox.  It  appears  to  have 
been  during  a  visit  to  the  chateau  of  Lord  and 
Lady  Bolingbroke  that  Aisse  first  met  Voltaire  ; 
and  later  on  we  shall  see  that  these  persons  played 
a  singular  but  very  important  part  in  the  drama 
of  her  life.  There  seems  no  doubt  that,  however 
little  Madame  de  Villette  and  Lord  Bolingbroke 
could  claim  the  white  flower  of  a  spotless  life, 
they  were  judicious  and  useful  friends  at  this 
perilous  moment  of  her  career.  Aisse's  beauty, 
which  was  extraordinary,  and  her  dubious  social 
station,  made  the  young  Circassian  peculiarly  liable 
to  attack  from  the  men  of  fashion  who  passed  from 
alcove  to  alcove  in  search  of  the  indulgence  of 
some  ephemeral  caprice.  The  poets  turned  their 
rhymes  in  her  honour,  and  one  of  their  effusions, 
that  of  the  Swiss  Vernet,  was  so  far  esteemed  that 
it  was  engraved  fifty  years  afterwards  underneath 
her  portrait.     It  may  thus  be  paraphrased  : — 

"  Aissd's  beauty  is  all  Greek  ; 

Yet  was  she  wise  in  youth  to  borrow 
From  France  the  charming  tongue  we  speak, 
And  wit,  and  airs  that  banish  sorrow  : 

A  theme  like  this  deserves  a  verse 
As  warm  and  clear  as  mine  is  cold, 

For  has  there  been  a  heart  like  hers 
Since  our  Astrean  age  of  gold  ? " 


MADEMOISELLE   AISSE      43 

Aiss6  received  all  this  homage  unmoved.  The 
Duke  of  Orleans  one  day  met  her  in  the  salon  of 
Madame  de  Parabere,  was  enchanted  with  her 
beauty,  and  declared  his  passion  to  Madame  de 
Ferriol.  To  the  lasting  shame  of  this  woman,  she 
agreed  to  support  his  claim,  and  the  Regent 
imagined  that  the  little  Greek  would  fall  an  easy 
prey.  To  his  amazement,  and  to  the  indignation 
of  Madame  de  Ferriol,  he  was  indignantly  re- 
pulsed ;  and  when  further  pressure  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  her,  Aisse  threatened  to  retire  at  once 
to  a  convent  if  the  proposition  was  so  much  as 
repeated.  She  was  one  of  the  principal  attrac- 
tions of  Madame  de  Ferriol's  salon,  and,  says  the 
memoir,  "  as  Aiss6  was  useful  to  her,  fearing  to 
lose  her,  she  consented,  though  most  unwillingly, 
to  say  no  more  to  her  "  about  the  Duke.  This 
was  but  one,  though  certainly  the  most  alarming, 
of  the  traps  set  for  her  feet  in  the  brilliant  and 
depraved  society  of  her  guardians.  The  habitual 
life  of  the  Tencins  and  Paraberes  of  1720  was 
something  to  us  quite  incredible.  Such  a  "  moral 
dialogue  "  as  Le  Hasard  au  Coin  du  Feu  would  be 
rejected  as  the  dream  of  a  licentious  satirist,  if  the 
memoirs  and  correspondence  of  the  Cidalises  and 
the  Clitandres  of  the  age  did  not  fully  convince  us 
that  the  novelists  merely  repeated  what  they  saw 
around  them.  We  must  bear  in  mind  what  an 
extraordinary  condition  of  roseate  semi-nudity 
this  politest  of  generations  lived  in,  to  understand 
the  excellence  as  well  as  the  frailty  of  Ai'ss^.  We 
must  also  bear  in  mind,  when  our  Puritan  indig- 
nation   is   ready    to    carry    us    away    in    profuse 


44  FRENCH    PROFILES 

condemnation  of  this  whole  society,  that  extremely 
shrewd  remark  of  Duclos :  "  Le  peuple  fran^ais 
est  le  seul  peuple  qui  puisse  perdre  ses  moeurs  sans 
se  corrompre." 

In  1720  the  old  ex-ambassador  fell  ill.  Aisse 
immediately  took  up  her  abode  with  him,  and 
nursed  him  assiduously  until  he  died.  That  he 
was  not  an  easy  invalid  to  cherish  we  gather  from 
a  phrase  in  one  of  her  own  letters,  as  well  as  from 
hints  in  those  of  Bolingbroke.  In  October,  1722, 
he  died,  leaving  to  Aisse  a  considerable  fortune  in 
the  form  of  an  annuity,  as  well  as  a  sum  of  money 
in  a  bill  on  the  estate.  The  sister-in-law,  Madame 
de  Ferriol,  to  whose  guardianship  Aisse  had  been 
consigned,  thought  her  own  sons  injured  by  the 
ambassador's  generosity,  and  had  the  extreme  bad 
taste  to  upbraid  Aisse.  The  note  had  not  yet  been 
cashed,  and  at  the  first  word  from  Madame  de 
Ferriol,  Aiss6  fetched  it  and  threw  it  into  the  fire. 
This  little  anecdote  speaks  worlds  for  the  sensitive 
and  independent  character  of  the  Circassian  ;  one 
almost  blushes  to  complete  it  by  adding  that 
Madame  de  Ferriol  took  advantage  of  her  ward's 
hasty  act  of  injured  pride.  Aisse,  however,  had 
other  things  to  think  of  ;  "  the  birthday  of  her  life 
was  come,  her  love  was  come  to  her."  As  early 
as  1 72 1,  we  find  Lord  Bolingbroke  saying,  in  a 
letter  to  Madame  de  Ferriol,  "  I  fully  expect  you 
to  come ;  I  even  flatter  myself  that  we  shall  see 
Madame  du  Deffand ;  but  as  for  Mademoiselle 
Aisse,  I  do  not  expect  her.  The  Turk  will  be  her 
excuse,  and  a  certain  Christian  of  my  acquaintance 
her    reason."     This    seems    to    mean    that    Aiss6 


MADEMOISELLE    AlSSE       45 

would  give  as  her  excuse  for  not  coining  to  stay 
with  the  BoHngbrokes  that  she  was  needed  at  the 
Ambassador's  pillow ;  but  that  her  real  reason 
would  be  that  she  wished  to  stay  in  Paris  to  be 
near  "  a  certain  Christian."  That  which  had  been 
vainly  attempted  by  so  many  august  aad  eminent 
personages,  namely,  the  capture  of  Aiss^'s  heart, 
was  now  being  pursued  with  alarming  success  by 
a  very  modest  candidate  for  her  affections. 

The  Chevalier  Blaise  Marie  d'Aydie,  the  hope 
of  an  impoverished  P^rigord  family  who  claimed 
descent,  with  a  blot  bn  their  escutcheon,  from  the 
noble  house  of  Foix,  was,  in  172 1,  about  thirty 
years  of  age.  He  had  lived  a  passably  dissipated 
life,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Clitandres  of  the  age, 
and  if  Mademoiselle  Rieu  is  to  be  believed, 
Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berry  herself  had  passed 
through  the  fires  on  his  behalf.  He  was  poor  ; 
he  was  brave  and  handsome  and  rather  stupid  ;  he 
was  expected  one  of  these  days  to  break  his  vows 
as  a  Knight  of  Malta  and  redeem  the  family 
fortunes  by  a  good  marriage.  We  have  a  portrait 
of  him  by  Madame  du  Deffand,  written  in  her 
delicate,  persisent  way,  touch  upon  touch,  with  a 
result  that  reminds  one  of  Mr.  Henry  James's 
pictures  of  character.  Voltaire,  more  rapidly  and 
more  enthusiastically,  called  him  the  "  chevalier 
sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,"  and  drew  him  as  the 
hero  of  his  tragedy  of  Adelaide  du  Guesclin.  He 
had  the  superficial  vices  of  his  time ;  but  his 
tenderness,  loyalty,  and  goodness  of  heart  were 
infinite,  and  if  we  judge  him  by  the  morals  of  his 
own  age  and  not  of  ours,  he  was  a  very  fine  fellow. 


46  FRENCH    PROFILES 

His  principal  fault  seems  to  have  been  that  he  was 
rather  dull.  As  Madame  du  Deffand  puts  it, 
"  They  say  of  Fontenelle  that  instead  of  a  heart  he 
has  a  second  brain  ;  one  might  believe  that  the 
head  of  the  Chevalier  contained  another  heart." 
All  evidence  goes  to  prove  that  from  the  moment 
when  he  first  met  Aisse  no  other  woman  existed 
for  him,  and  if  their  union  was  blameworthy,  let  it 
be  at  least  admitted  that  it  lasted,  with  impassioned 
fidelity  on  both  sides,  for  twelve  years  and  until 
Aisse's  death. 

It  would  appear  that  until  the  Ambassador 
passed  away,  and  the  irksome  life  at  the  Hotel 
Ferriol  began  again,  Aiss6  contrived  to  keep  her 
ardent  admirer  within  bounds.  To  us  it  seems 
amazingly  perverse  that  the  lovers  did  not  marry  ; 
but  Aiss6  herself  was  the  first  to  insist  that  a 
Chevalier  d'Aydie  could  not  and  should  not  offend 
his  relations  by  a  mesalliance  with  a  Circassian 
slave.  At  last  she  yielded  ;  but,  as  Mademoiselle 
Rieu  tells  us,  "  he  loved  her  so  delicately  that  he 
was  jealous  of  her  reputation  ;  he  adored  her,  and 
would  have  sacrificed  everything  for  her  ;  while  she, 
on  her  part,  loving  the  Chevalier,  found  his  fame, 
his  fortune,  his  honour,  dearer  to  her  than  her 
own."  In  1724  she  found  it  absolutely  necessary 
to  disappear  from  her  circle  of  acquaintance.  She 
did  not  dare  to  confide  her  secret  to  the  un- 
scrupulous Madame  de  Ferriol,  and  in  her  despair 
she  examined  the  circle  of  her  friends  for  the  most 
sympathetic  face.  She  decided  to  trust  Lady 
Bolingbroke,  and  she  could  not  have  made  a  wiser 
choice.     That  tender-hearted    and  deeply-experi- 


MADEMOISELLE    AlSSE       47 

enced  lady  was  equal  to  the  delicate  emergency. 
She  announced  her  intention  of  spending  a  few 
months  in  England,  and  she  begged  Madame  de 
Ferriol  to  allow  Aisse  to  accompany  her.  They 
started  as  if  for  Calais,  but  only  to  double  upon 
their  steps.  Aisse,  in  company  with  her  maid, 
Sophie,  and  a  confidential  English  man-servant, 
was  installed  in  a  remote  suburb  of  Paris,  under 
the  care  of  the  Chevalier  d'Aydie,  while  Lady 
Bolingbroke  hastened  on  to  England,  and  amused 
herself  with  inventing  anecdotes  and  messages  from 
A'iss6.  In  the  fulness  of  time  Lady  Bolingbroke 
returned  and  took  care  to  "  collect "  Aisse  before 
she  presented  herself  at  the  Hotel  Ferriol.  Mean- 
while a  daughter  had  been  born,  who  was  chris- 
tened Cel^nie  Leblond,  and  who  was  placed  in 
a  convent  at  Sens,  under  the  name  of  Miss  Black, 
as  a  niece  of  Lord  Bolingbroke.  The  abbess  of 
this  convent  was  a  Mademoiselle  de  Villette, 
the  daughter  of  Lady  Bolingbroke.  No  novelist 
would  dare  to  describe  so  improbable  a  stratagem  ; 
let  us  make  the  story  complete  by  adding  that  it 
succeeded  to  perfection,  and  that  Madame  de 
Ferriol  herself  never  seems  to  have  suspected  the 
truth.  This  daughter,  whom  we  shall  presently 
meet  again,  grew  up  to  be  a  charming  woman, 
and  adorned  society  in  the  next  generation  as  the 
Vicomtesse  de  Nanthia.  If  the  story  of  Aisse 
ended  here  it  would  not  appeal  to  a  Richardson,  or 
even  to  an  Abb6  Pr6vost  d'Exiles,  as  a  moral  tale. 

Between  1723  and  1726  Aisse's  life  passed 
quietly  enough.  The  Chevalier  d'Aydie  was  con- 
stantly at  the  Hotel  Ferriol,  but  the  two  lovers 


48  FRENCH    PROFILES 

were  not  any  longer  in  their  first  youth.  A  Httle 
prudence  went  a  long  way  in  a  society  adorned  by 
Madame  de  Parabere  and  Madame  de  Tencin. 
No  breath  of  scandal  seems  to  have  troubled  Aisse, 
and  when  her  cares  came,  they  all  began  from 
within.  We  do  not  possess  the  letters  of  Aisse  to 
her  lover.  I  hope  I  am  not  a  Philistine  if  I  admit 
that  I  sincerely  hope  they  will  never  be  discovered. 
We  possess  the  love  letters  of  Mademoiselle  de 
L'Espinasse  ;  this  should  be  enough  of  that  kind 
of  literature  for  one  century  at  least — it  would  be 
a  terrible  thing  to  come  down  one  morning  to  see 
announced  a  collection  of  the  letters  of  Aiss6  to 
her  Chevalier,  edited  by  M.Edmondde  Goncourt ! 
In  the  summer  of  1726  there  arrived  from  Geneva 
a  lady  about  twenty  years  older  than  Aiss^,  the 
wife  of  a  M.  Calandrini  ;  she  was  a  step-aunt,  if 
such  a  relationship  be  recognised,  of  Lord  Boling- 
broke,  and  so  was  intimately  connected  with  the 
Ferriol  circle.  Research,  which  really  is  far  too 
busy  in  our  days,  has  found  out  that  Madame  de 
Calandrini  herself  had  not  been  all  that  could  be 
desired  ;  but  in  1726  she  was  devote,  yet  not  to 
such  an  extent  as  to  throw  any  barrier  between 
herself  and  the  confidences  of  a  younger  woman. 
Aiss6  received  her  warmly,  gave  her  heart  to  her 
without  reserve,  and  when  the  lady  went  back  to 
Geneva  Aiss6  discovered  that  she  was  the  first  and 
best  friend  that  she  had  ever  possessed.  Madame 
Calandrini  carried  home  with  her  the  inmost  and 
most  dangerous  secrets  of  Aiss^'s  history,  and  it  is 
evident  that  she  immediately  planned  her  young 
friend's  conversion. 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE      49 

The  Letters  of  Aiss6  are  exclusively  composed 
of  her  correspondence  with  this  Madame  Calandrini 
from  the  autumn  of  1726  to  her  own  fatal  illness 
in  January,  1733.  They  remained  in  Geneva 
until,  in  1758,  they  were  lent  to  Voltaire,  who 
enriched  them  with  very  interesting  and  important 
notes.  Nearly  thirty  years  more  passed,  and  at 
length,  in  1787,  they  saw  the  light.  Next  year 
they  were  reprinted,  with  a  very  delightful  portrait 
of  Aiss6.  In  this  she  appears  as  a  decided  beauty, 
with  very  fair  hair,  an  elegant  and  spirited  head 
lightly  poised  on  delicate  shoulders,  and  nothing 
Oriental  in  her  appearance  except  the  large,  oval, 
dark  eyes,  languishing  with  incredible  length  of 
eyelash.  The  text  was  confused  and  difficult  in 
these  early  editions,  and  in  successive  reprints  has 
occupied  various  biographers — M.  de  Barante,  M. 
Ravenel,  M.  Piedagnal.  I  suppose,  however,  that  I 
do  no  injustice  to  those  writers  if  I  claim  for  M. 
Eugene  Asse  the  credit  of  having  done  more  than 
any  other  man,  by  patient  annotation  and  collection 
of  explicatory  documents,  to  render  the  reading  of 
Aiss^'s  letters  interesting  and  agreeable. 

The  letters  of  Aiss6  to  Madame  Calandrini  are 
the  history  of  an  awakening  conscience.  It  is  this 
fact,  and  the  slow  development  of  the  inevitable 
moral  plot,  which  give  them  their  singular  psycho- 
logical value.  As  the  letters  approach  their  close, 
our  attention  is  entirely  riveted  by  the  spectacle  of 
this  tender  and  passionate  spirit  tortured  by  re- 
morse and  yearning  for  expiation.  But  at  the 
outset  there  is  no  moral  passion  expressed,  and  we 
think  less  of  Aiss6  herself  than  of  the  society  to 

D 


50  FRENCH    PROFILES 

which  she  belonged  by  her  age  and  education. 
As  it  seems  impossible,  from  other  sources  of 
information,  to  believe  that  Madame  Calandrini 
was  what  is  commonly  thought  to  be  an  amiable 
woman,  we  take  from  Aisse's  praise  of  her  some- 
thing of  the  same  impression  that  we  obtain  from 
Madame  de  Sevigne's  affectionate  addresses  to 
Madame  de  Grignan.  Indeed,  the  opening  letter 
of  Aisse's  series,  with  its  indescribable  tone  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  reads  so  much  like  one  of  the 
Sevigne's  letters  to  her  daughter  that  one  wonders 
whether  the  semblance  can  be  wholly  accidental. 
There  is  a  childish  archness  in  the  way  in  which 
Aisse  jests  about  all  her  own  adorers — the  suscep- 
tible abb^s,  and  the  councillors  whose  neglected 
passion  has  comfortably  subsided  into  friendship. 
There  are  little  picturesque  touches — the  black 
spaniel  yelping  in  his  lady's  lap,  and  upsetting  the 
coffee-pot  in  his  eagerness  to  greet  a  new-comer. 
There  are  charming  bits  of  self-portraiture  :  "  I 
used  to  flatter  myself  that  I  was  a  little  philosopher, 
but  I  never  shall  be  one  in  matters  of  sentiment." 
It  is  all  so  youthful,  so  girlish,  that  we  have  to 
remind  ourselves  that  the  author  of  such  a  passage 
as  the  following  was  in  her  thirty-third  year : — 

"  I  spend  my  days  in  shooting  little  birds  ;  this 
does  me  a  great  deal  of  good.  Exercise  and  dis- 
traction are  excellent  remedies  for  the  vapours. 
The  ardour  of  the  chase  makes  me  walk,  although 
my  feet  are  bruised  ;  the  perspiration  that  this 
exercise  causes  is  good  for  me.  I  am  as  sun- 
burned as  a  crow  ;  you  would  be  frightened  if  you 
saw  me,  but  I  scarcely  mind  it.     How  happy  should 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       51 

I  be  if  I  were  still  with  you  !  I  would  willingly 
give  a  pint  of  my  blood  if  we  could  be  together  at 
this  moment." 

Here  Aisse  anticipates  by  a  year  or  two  Matthew 
Green's  famous  "  Fling  but  a  stone,  the  giant  dies." 
She  has  told  Madame  Calandrini  everything.  The 
Chevalier  is  away  in  Perigord,  which  adds  to  her 
vapours  ;  but  his  letters  breathe  the  sweetest  con- 
stancy. She  would  like  to  send  them  to  Geneva, 
but  she  dares  not  ;  they  are  too  full  of  her  own 
praises.  She  has  been  to  see  the  first  performance 
of  a  new  comedy,  Pyrame  et  Thisbe,  and  giggles 
over  its  disastrous  fate.  This  gives  us  firm  ground 
in  dating  this  first  letter,  for  this  comedy,  or  rather 
opera,  was  played  on  the  17th  of  October,  1726. 
Nothing  could  be  more  gay  or  sparkling  than 
Aiss^'s  tone. 

But  soon  there  comes  a  change.  We  find  that 
she  is  not  happy  in  the  Hotel  Ferriol.  Her  friend 
and  foster-brother,  Comte  d'Argental,  who  lived  on 
until  1788  to  be  the  last  survivor  of  her  circle,  is 
away  "with  his  sweetheart  in  the  Enchanted 
Island,"  and  she  has  his  room  while  hers  is  being 
refurnished.  But  it  will  cost  her  one  hundred 
pistoles,  for  Madame  de  Ferriol  makes  her  pay  for 
everything.  The  subjects  which  she  writes  about 
in  all  light-heartedness  are  extraordinary.  She 
cannot  resist,  from  sheer  ebullience  of  mirth,  copy- 
ing out  a  letter  of  amazing  impudence  written  by 
a  certain  officer  of  dragoons  to  the  bishop  of  his 
diocese.  Can  she  or  can  she  not  continue  to 
know  the  beautiful  brazen  Madame  de  Parabere, 
whose  behaviour  is  of  a  lightness,  but  oh  1  of  such 


52  FRENCH    PROFILES 

a  lightness.  Yet  "  her  carriage  is  always  at  my 
service,  and  don't  you  think  it  would  be  ridiculous 
not  to  visit  her  at  all  ?"  If  one  desires  a  marvel- 
lous tale  of  the  ways  and  the  manners  of  the  great 
world  under  Louis  XV.,  there  is  the  astounding 
story  of  Madame  la  Princesse  de  Bournonville, 
and  how  she  was  publicly  engaged  to  marry  the 
Due  de  Ruffec  fifteen  minutes  after  her  first  hus- 
band's death  ;  it  is  told,  with  perfect  calmness,  in 
Aiss6's  best  manner.  The  Prince  was  one  of 
Aiss^'s  numerous  rejected  adorers  ;  she  rejoices 
that  he  has  left  her  no  compromising  legacy. 
There  is  a  certain  affair,  on  the  loth  of  January, 
1727,  "which  would  make  your  hair  stand  on 
end  ;  but  it  really  is  too  infamous  to  be  written 
down."  A  wonderful  world,  so  elegant  and  so 
debased,  so  enthusiastic  and  so  cynical,  so  full  of 
beauty  and  so  full  of  corruption,  that  we  find  no 
name  but  Louis  Quinze  to  qualify  its  paradoxes. 

In  her  earlier  letters  A'iss6  reveals  herself  as  a 
patron  of  the  stage,  and  a  dramatic  critic  of  marked 
views.  Her  foster-brothers,  Pont-de-Veyle  and 
Argental,  were  deeply  stage-stricken  ;  the  "  En- 
chanted Island  "  of  the  latter  seems  to  have  been 
situated  somewhere  in  that  ocean,  the  Theatre  de 
rOp6ra.  Aiss6  threw  herself  with  heart  and  soul  into 
the  famous  rivalry  between  the  two  operatic  stars 
of  Paris  ;  she  was  all  for  the  enchanting  Lemaure, 
and  when  that  public  favourite  wilfully  retired  to 
private  life  Aiss6  found  that  the  Pellissier  "  fait 
horriblement  mal."  She  tells  with  infinite  zest  a 
rather  scurrilous  story  of  how  a  certain  famous 
Jansenist  canon,  seventy  years  of  age,  fearing  to 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE      53 

die  without  having  ever  seen  a  dramatic  perfor- 
mance, dressed  himself  up  in  his  deceased  grand- 
mother's garments  and  made  his  appearance  in  the 
pit,  creating,  by  his  incredible  oddity  of  garb  and 
feature,  such  a  sensation  that  the  actor  Armand 
stopped  playing,  and  desired  him,  amid  the 
shrieks  of  laughter  of  the  audience,  to  decamp  as 
fast  as  possible.  Voltaire  vouches  for  the  absolute 
truth  of  this  anecdote.  But  before  Aiss6  begins 
to  lose  the  gaiety  of  her  spirits  it  may  be  well  to 
let  her  give  in  her  own  language,  or  as  near  as  I 
can  reach  it,  a  sample  of  her  powers  as  an  artist 
in  anecdote. 

"  A  little  while  ago  there  happened  a  little 
adventure  which  has  made  a  good  deal  of  noise. 
I  will  tell  you  about  it.  Six  weeks  ago  Isez,  the 
surgeon  [one  of  the  most  eminent  practitioners  of 
his  time]  received  a  note,  begging  him,  at  six 
o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  to  be  in 
the  Rue  du  Pot-de-Fer,  close  to  the  Luxembourg. 
He  did  not  fail  to  be  there  ;  he  found  waiting  for 
him  a  man,  who  conducted  him  for  a  few  steps, 
and  then  made  him  enter  a  house,  shutting  the 
door  on  the  surgeon,  so  as,  himself,  to  remain  in 
the  street.  Isez  was  surprised  that  this  man  did 
not  at  once  take  him  where  he  was  wanted.  But 
the  portier  of  the  house  appeared,  and  told  him 
that  he  was  expected  on  the  first  floor,  and  asked 
him  to  step  up,  which  he  did.  He  opened  an 
ante-chamber  all  hung  with  white  ;  a  lackey,  made  to 
be  put  in  a  picture,  dressed  in  white,  nicely  curled, 
nicely  powdered,  and  with  a  pouch  of  white  hair 
and  two  dusters  in  his  hand,  came  to  meet  him,  and 


54  FRENCH    PROFILES 

told  him  that  he  must  have  his  shoes  wiped.  After 
this  ceremony,  he  was  conducted  into  a  room  also 
hung  with  white.  Another  lackey,  dressed  like  the 
first,  went  through  the  same  ceremony  with  the 
shoes  ;  he  was  then  taken  into  a  room  where  every- 
thing was  white,  bed,  carpet,  tapestry,  fauteuils, 
chairs,  tables  and  floor.  A  tall  figure  in  a  night-cap 
and  a  perfectly  white  dressing-gown,  and  a  white 
mask,  was  seated  near  the  fire.  When  this  kind  of 
phantom  perceived  Isez,  he  said  to  him,  *  I  have  the 
devil  in  my  body,'  and  spoke  no  more  ;  for  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  he  did  nothing  but  put  on  and 
pull  off  six  pairs  of  white  gloves  which  he  had  on 
a  table  by  his  side.  Isez  was  frightened,  but  he 
grew  more  so  when,  glancing  round  the  room,  he 
saw  several  fire-arms  ;  he  was  taken  with  such  a 
trembling  that  he  was  obliged  to  sit  down  for  fear 
of  falling.  At  last,  to  break  the  silence,  he  asked 
the  figure  in  white  what  was  wanted  of  him, 
because  he  had  an  engagement,  and  his  time  be- 
longed to  the  public.  The  white  figure  dryly 
replied,  '  What  does  it  matter  to  you,  if  you  are 
paid  well  ? '  and  said  nothing  more.  Another 
quarter  of  an  hour  passed  in  silence  ;  at  last  the 
phantom  pulled  the  bell-rope.  The  two  white 
lackeys  reappeared  ;  the  phantom  asked  for  ban- 
dages, and  told  Isez  to  draw  five  pounds  of  blood." 
We  must  spoil  the  story  by  finishing  it  abruptly. 
Isez  bleeds  the  phantom  not  in  the  arm,  on 
account  of  the  monstrous  quantity  of  blood,  but  in 
the  foot,  a  very  beautiful  woman's  foot,  apparently, 
when  he  gets  to  the  last  of  six  pairs  of  white  silk 
stockings.     He   is    presently,   after    various    other 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE      55 

adventures,  turned  out  of  the  mysterious  house, 
and  nobody,  not  even  the  King  himself,  can  tell 
what  it  all  means. 

But  very  soon  the  picture  of  A'iss^'s  life  begins 
to  be  clouded  over.  In  the  spring  of  1727,  she  is 
in  a  peck  of  troubles.  The  periodical  reduction 
of  the  State  annuities,  which  had  been  carried  out 
once  more  during  the  preceding  winter  by  the  new 
Minister  of  Finance,  had  brought  misery  to  many 
gentlefolks  of  France.  In  Aiss6's  early  letters,  she 
and  her  acquaintances  appear  much  as  Irish  land- 
lords do  now  ;  in  her  latest  letters  they  remind 
us  of  what  these  landlords  would  be  if  the  National 
party  realised  its  dream.  The  Chevalier  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  a  sufferer  personally  ;  he  had 
not  much  to  lose,  but  we  find  him  sympathising 
with  Aisse,  and  drawing  up  an  appealing  letter  for 
her  to  send  to  the  Cardinal  de  Fleury.  Aiss6 
begins  to  feel  the  shadows  falling  across  her  future. 
If  ever  she  marries,  she  says,  she  will  put  into  the 
contract  a  clause  by  which  she  retains  the  right  to 
go  to  Geneva  whenever  she  likes,  for  she  longs  to 
tell  her  troubles  to  Madame  Calandrini.  And  thus 
is  first  sounded  the  mournful  key  to  which  we  soon 
become  accustomed : — 

"  Every  day  I  see  that  there  is  nothing  but  virtue 
that  is  any  good  for  this  world  and  the  next.  As 
for  myself,  who  have  not  been  lucky  enough  to 
behave  properly,  but  who  respect  and  admire 
virtuous  people,  the  simple  wish  to  belong  to  the 
number  attracts  to  me  all  sorts  of  flattering  things  ; 
the  pity  which  every  one  shows  me  [for  her  money 
losses,  doubtless],  almost  prevents  me  from  being 


S6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

miserable.  I  have  just  2000  francs  of  income  at 
most  left.     My  jewels  and  my  diamonds  are  sold." 

The  result  of  her  sudden  poverty  appears  to 
have  been  that  the  Chevalier  d'Aydie,  sorely  against 
his  inclination,  but  actuated  by  a  generous  impulse, 
offered  to  marry  her.  She  was  not  less  generous 
than  he,  and  almost  Quixotically  rejected  what 
would  have  been  her  greatest  satisfaction.  To 
Madame  Calandrini,  who  was  plainly  one  of  those 
who  urged  her  to  accept  this  act  of  restitution,  the 
orphan-mother  answers  thus  : — 

"Think,  Madame,  of  what  the  world  would  say 
if  he  married  a  nobody,  and  one  who  depended 
entirely  on  the  charity  of  the  Ferriol  family. 
No  ;  I  love  his  fame  too  much,  and  I  have  myself 
at  the  same  time  too  much  pride,  to  allow  him  to 
commit  such  an  act  of  folly.  He  would  be  sure 
to  repent  of  having  followed  the  bent  of  his  absurd 
passion,  and  I  could  not  survive  the  pain  of  having 
made  him  wretched,  and  of  being  myself  no  longer 
loved." 

The  Chevalier,  unable  to  live  in  Paris  without 
being  at  her  side,  fled  for  a  five  months'  exile  to 
the  parental  chateau  in  Perigord.  Aiss6  had 
expressed  a  mild  surprise  that  he  could  not  con- 
trive to  be  more  calm,  but  their  discussions  had 
always  ended  in  a  joke.  Yet  it  is  plain  that  all 
these  circumstances  made  her  regard  life  more 
seriously  than  she  had  ever  done  before.  In  her 
next  letter  (August,  1727)  we  learn  how  miserable 
a  home  the  Hotel  Ferriol  had  now  become  for 
her.  "  The  mistress  of  this  house,"  she  says,  "  is 
much  more  difficult   to  live  with   than  the  poor 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       57 

Ambassador  was."  As  for  the  Chevalier,  he  had 
scarcely  reached  Perigueux,  when  he  forgot  all 
about  the  months  he  wished  to  spend  in  the 
country,  and  hastened  back  to  Paris  to  be  near 
Aiss^.  The  latter  writes,  in  her  prim  way,  "  I 
admit  I  was  very  agreeably  surprised  to  see  him 
enter  my  room  yesterday.  How  happy  I  should 
be  if  I  could  only  love  him  without  having  to 
reproach  myself  for  it ! "  It  is  plain,  in  spite  of 
the  always  modest,  and  now  timid  way  in  which 
she  writes,  that  her  moral  worth  and  delicate 
judgment  were  estimated  at  their  true  value  even 
by  the  frivolous  women  who  surrounded  her. 
The  Duchess  of  Fitz-James  asks  her  advice  as  to 
whether  she  shall  or  shall  not  accept  the  hand  of 
the  Due  d'Aumont.  The  dissolute  Madame  de 
Tencin  cannot  forgive  or  forget  Aisse's  tacit  dis- 
approval of  her  conduct.  The  gentler,  but  not 
less  naughty  Madame  de  Parabere  purrs  around 
her  like  a  cat,  exquisitely  assiduous  not  entirely 
to  lose  the  esteem  of  one  whose  position  in  the 
world  can  have  offered  nothing  to  such  a  person- 
age, but  by  whose  intelligence  and  sympathetic 
goodness  she  could  not  help  being  fascinated. 
In  recording  all  this,  without  in  the  least  being 
aware  of  it,  Aiss6  gives  us  an  impression  of  her 
own  simple  sweetness  as  of  a  touchstone  by 
which  radically  evil  natures  were  distinguished 
from  those  whose  voluntary  abasement  was  not 
the  sign  of  a  complete  corruption  of  spirit. 

We  are  made  to  feel  in  Aisse's  letters,  that,  with- 
out being  in  any  degree  a  blue-stocking,  she  was 
eager  to  form  her  own  impression  on  the  various 


58  FRENCH    PROFILES 

intellectual  questions  of  the  hour.  Gullivers 
Travels  had  only  been  published  in  England  in 
the  autumn  of  1726  ;  in  the  spring  of  1727  Aisse 
had  read  it,  in  Desfontaine's  translation,  knew 
that  it  was  the  work  of  Swift,  and  praised  it  in  the 
very  same  terms  that  the  world  has  since  agreed 
to  bestow  upon  it.  Destouches  seems  to  have 
been  a  friend  of  hers,  but  when  in  the  same  year 
she  went  to  see  his  new  comedy  Le  Philosophe 
Marie,  she  was  not  blinded  by  friendship.  "It  is 
a  very  charming  comedy,"  she  wrote,  "  full  of 
sentiment,  full  of  delicacy  ;  but  it  does  not  possess 
the  genius  of  Moliere."  Nor  is  she  less  judicious 
in  what  she  says  about  the  masterpiece  of  another 
friend,  the  Abb6  Prevost  d'Exiles.  She  writes  in 
October,  1728,  "We  have  a  new  book  here 
entitled  Me'moires  d'un  Homme  de  Qualite  retire  du 
Monde,  it  is  not  worth  much,  except  one  hundred 
and  ninety  pages  which  make  one  burst  out 
crying."  These  one  hundred  and  ninety  pages 
were  that  immortal  supplement  to  a  dull  book 
which  we  call  Manon  Lescaut,  over  which  as  many 
tears  are  shed  nowadays  as  were  dropped  a 
century  and  a  half  ago.  It  is  said  by  those  who 
have  read  Provost's  forgotten  romance,  Histoire 
dune  Grecque  Moderne,  published  long  afterwards 
in  1 74 1;  that  it  contains  a  full-length  portrait  of 
the  author's  old  friend  Aiss6.  It  might  be  amusing 
to  compare  this  with  Voltaire's  portrait  of  her 
chevalier  in  Addatde  du  Guesclin. 

She  was  evidently  a  centre  of  light  and  activity. 
The  young  woman  with  whom,  at  all  events  during 
certain  periods,  Bolingbroke  corresponded  by  every 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       59 

post,  could  be  no  commonplace  person.  Voltaire 
vouches  for  her  exact  and  independent  knowledge 
of  events.  When  Madame  Calandrini  is  anxious 
to  know  how  a  certain  incident  at  court  will  turn 
out,  Aisse  says,  "  You  shall  know  before  the 
people  who  make  the  Gazette  do,"  and  her  letters 
differ  from  the  poet  Gray's,  which  otherwise  they 
often  curiously  resemble,  that  she  seems  to  know 
at  first  hand  the  class  of  news  that  Gray  only 
repeats.  She  sometimes  shows  her  first-hand 
knowledge  by  her  very  inaccuracy.  She  gives, 
for  instance,  a  long  account,  which  we  follow 
with  breathless  interest,  of  the  death  of  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur,  the  event,  probably,  which  moved 
Paris  more  vehemently  than  any  other  during  the 
year  1730.  A'iss6  directly  charges  the  young 
Duchesse  de  Bouillon  with  the  murder  of  the 
actress,  and  supports  her  charge  with  an  amaz- 
ing array  of  horrible  details.  The  affair  was 
mysterious,  and  Aisse  was  evidently  minutely 
informed  ;  yet  Voltaire,  in  whose  arms  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur  died,  declares  that  her  account  is  not 
the  true  one.  On  one  point  her  knowledge  of 
her  contemporaries  is  very  useful  to  us.  The 
priceless  correspondence  of  Madame  du  Deffand 
makes  the  latter,  as  an  old  woman,  an  exceedingly 
life-like  figure,  but  we  know  little  of  her  early  life ; 
Ai'sse's  sketches  of  her,  therefore,  and  to  say  the 
truth,  cruelly  penetrating  analysis  of  her  character 
at  the  age  of  thirty,  are  most  valuable.  The 
Madame  du  Deffand  we  know  seems  a  wiser 
woman  than  Aiss^'s  friend  ;  but  the  fact  is  that 
many  of  these  witty  Frenchwomen  only  became 


6o  FRENCH    PROFILES 

tolerable,  like  remarkable  vintages,  when  they  were 
growing  a  little  crusted. 

Among  the  brightest  sections  of  Aiss^'s  corres- 
pondence are  those  in  which  she  speaks  of  her 
high-spirited  and  somewhat  dissolute  foster- 
brothers,  Pont-de-Veyle  and  D'Argental.  These 
two  men  were  sowing  their  wild  oats  very  hard, 
in  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  although  they  were 
passing  the  solemn  age  of  thirty,  the  sacks  seemed 
inexhaustible.  But  so  far  as  regarded  Aisse,  their 
conduct  was  all  that  was  chivalrous,  all  that  was 
honourably  fraternal.  Pont-de-Veyle  she  calls  an 
angel,  but  it  was  D'Argental  whom  she  loved  the 
most,  and  nothing  is  more  touching  than  an 
account  she  gives,  with  the  naivete  of  a  child,  of 
a  quarrel  she  had  with  him.  This  quarrel  lasted 
eight  days,  and  Aiss6  kept  her  letter  open  until 
she  could  add,  in  a  postscript,  the  desired  infor- 
mation that,  she  having  drunk  his  health  at  dinner 
and  afterwards  kissed  him,  they  have  made  it  up 
without  any  formal  explanation.  "  Since  then," 
she  adds  in  that  tone  of  hers  which  makes  the 
eyes  of  a  middle-aged  citizen  of  perfidious  Albion 
quite  dim  after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  "  Since 
then  we  have  been  a  great  deal  together." 

In  1728  she  had  need  of  all  the  kindness  she 
could  get.  The  Chevalier  was  so  ill  in  June  that 
she  was  obliged  to  face  the  prospect  of  his  death. 
"  Duty,  love,  inquietude,  and  friendship,  are  for 
ever  troubling  my  thoughts  and  my  body  ;  I  am 
in  a  cruel  agitation  ;  my  body  is  giving  way,  for 
I  am  overwhelmed  with  vapours  and  with  grief  ; 
and,  if  any  misfortune  should  happen  to  that  man, 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       6i 

I  feel  I  should  not  be  able  to  endure  the  horrible 
sorrow  of  it.  He  is  more  attached  to  me  than 
ever  ;  he  encourages  me  to  perform  my  duties. 
Sometimes  I  cannot  help  telling  him,  that  if  he 
gets  any  worse  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to 
leave  him  ;  and  then  he  scolds  me."  The  dread- 
ful condition  of  genteel  poverty  in  which  the 
Ferriol  family  were  now  living,  did  not  tend  to 
make  Aiss6's  home  a  bed  of  roses.  In  the  winter 
of  1728  these  famous  people  of  quaHty  were 
"dying  of  hunger."  There  was  not,  that  is  to 
say,  as  much  food  upon  their  table  as  their 
appetites  required,  and  Aiss6  expected  to  share 
the  fate  of  the  horse  whose  master  gave  him  one 
grain  less  of  oats  each  day  until  he  died  from 
starvation.  In  this  there  was  of  course  a  little 
playful  exaggeration,  but  her  poverty  weighed 
heavily  on  Aiss6.  She  had  scarcely  enough  money 
for  her  daily  wants,  and  envied  the  Chevalier, 
who  was  saving  that  he  might  form  a  dowry  for 
the  little  daughter  at  Sens,  the  '^  pauvre  petite "  in 
the  convent,  after  whom  Aiss6's  heart  yearned, 
and  whom  she  might  but  very  rarely  visit  as  a 
stranger. 

She  spent  the  autumn  of  1729  at  Pont-de- 
Veyle,  the  country  seat  of  the  Ferriol  family,  a 
chateau  between  Macon  and  Bourg.  She  took 
advantage  of  this  neighbourhood  to  Switzerland, 
and  paid  the  long-promised  visit  to  Madame 
Calandrini  in  Geneva.  The  incident  was  a  moment- 
ous one  in  the  history  of  her  soul.  She  came 
back  more  uneasy,  more  irresolute  than  ever,  and 
in  deep  depression  of  spirits.     Her  first  instinct. 


62  FRENCH    PROFILES 

on  being  left  to  her  own  thoughts  again,  was  to 
enter  a  convent,  but  Madame  Calandrini  did  not 
encourage  this  idea,  and  A'isse  soon  relinquished 
it.  She  saw,  herself,  that  duty  called  her  to  stay 
with  Madame  de  Ferriol,  who  was  now  growing 
an  invalid.  Before  leaving  Geneva  Madame 
Calandrini  had  made  a  solemn  attempt  to  per- 
suade her  to  conclude  her  dubious  relations  with 
the  Chevalier.  She  tried  to  extract  a  promise 
from  Aiss6  that  she  would  either  marry  D'Aydie 
or  cease  to  see  him.  But  it  is  easy  for  comfort- 
able matrons  in  their  own  boudoirs  to  urge  a  line 
of  conduct ;  it  is  less  simple  for  the  unfortunate 
to  carry  out  these  maxims  in  the  hard  light  of 
day.  Aiss6  wrote :  "  All  that  I  can  promise  you 
is  that  nothing  shall  be  spared  to  bring  about  one 
or  other  of  these  things.  But,  Madame,  it  may 
cost  me  my  life."  Such  words  are  lightly  said  ; 
but  in  Aiss^'s  case  they  came  from  the  heart. 
She  made  the  sacrifice,  and  it  did  cost  her  her 
life.  She  attempted  to  melt  the  severe  censor  at 
Geneva  by  extracts  from  the  Chevalier's  letters, 
and  finally  she  made  an  appeal  which  goes  straight 
to  our  sympathy.  "  How  can  I  cut  to  the  quick 
a  violent  passion,  and  the  tenderest  and  firmest 
friendship  ?  Add  to  all  this,  gratitude :  it  is 
frightful !  Death  would  not  be  worse !  How- 
ever, since  you  wish  me  to  make  an  effort,  I  will 
do  so."  Conscience  and  the  Calandrini  were 
inexorable. 

In  the  dull  house  at  Pont-de-Veyle  Aiss6  was 
thrown  upon  her  own  consciousness  more  than  in 
Paris.      She    gives    us    a    picture    of   her    dreary 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       63 

existence.  The  Archbishop  of  Lyons,  who  was 
Madame  de  Ferriol's  brother,  was  the  only  intelli- 
gent companion  she  had,  and  he  was  locked  up 
all  day  with  Jesuit  priests.  The  young  Ferriols 
were  in  Paris  ;  their  mother,  jealous,  pietistic,  and 
peevish,  wore  Aiss6  out  with  ennui.  It  was  in  this 
tension  of  the  nervous  system,  this  irritation  and 
depression  of  spirits,  that  on  her  way  back  to 
Paris  in  November  she  paid  a  stolen  visit  to  Sens 
to  see  her  little  daughter.  The  letter  in  which 
she  describes  the  interview  is  simply  heartrending. 
The  little  delicate  child,  with  an  exquisite  instinct, 
clung  to  this  unknown  friend,  and  when  at  last 
Aiss6  had  to  say  farewell,  her  daughter — whom 
she  must  not  call  her  daughter — wrung  the 
mother's  heart  with  mingled  anguish  and  delight 
by  throwing  her  arms  round  her  neck  and  crying 
out,  "  I  have  no  father  or  mother  ;  please,  you  be 
my  mother,  for  I  love  you  as  much  as  if  you 
really  were  ! "  Aiss6  could  not  tear  herself  away  ; 
she  remained  a  fortnight  at  the  convent,  more 
unhappy  than  happy,  and  so  afflicted  in  spirits 
that  she  positively  had  to  take  to  her  bed.  The 
little  "  Miss  Black  "  waited  upon  her  with  a  child's 
enthusiasm,  refusing  to  play  with  her  companions, 
and  lavishing  her  caresses  upon  her.  At  last  the 
poor  mother  forced  herself  to  depart,  fearing  lest 
she  should  expose  her  secret  by  her  emotion. 
She  made  her  way  to  Paris,  where  she  found  the 
Chevalier  waiting  for  her,  and  all  her  good  resolu- 
tions were  shattered  by  the  passionate  joy  of  his 
welcome.  She  did  not  know  what  to  do  nor 
where  to  turn. 


64  FRENCH    PROFILES 

In  the  beginning  of  1730  the  Chevalier  had 
another  dangerous  illness,  and  A'iss^  was  obliged 
to  postpone  the  crisis.  He  got  well  and  she  was 
so  happy  that  she  could  not  but  postpone  it 
a  little  longer.  Slowly,  as  she  herself  perceived, 
her  bodily  strength  began  to  waste  away  under 
the  agitations  of  her  conscience.  We  may  pass 
over  the  slow  progress  of  the  spiritual  com- 
plaint, which  took  more  than  three  years  to 
destroy  her  healthy  constitution.  We  must  push 
on  to  the  end.  In  1732  her  health  gave  serious 
alarm  to  all  those  who  surrounded  her.  That 
few  of  her  friends  suspected  the  real  state  of  the 
case,  nor  the  hidden  griefs  that  were  destroying 
her,  is  proved  among  other  things  by  a  little 
copy  of  verses  which  has  been  preserved  in  the 
works  of  a  great  man.  Voltaire,  who  made  a 
joke  of  his  own  supposed  passion  for  A'iss^,  sent 
her  in  1732  a  packet  of  ratafia,  to  relieve  a 
painful  symptom  of  her  complaint,  and  he  accom- 
panied it  by  a  flippant  versicle,  which  may  thus 
be  rendered :  — 

"  Hence  !  Through  her  veins  like  subtle  anguish  fleet  ! 
Change  to  desires  the  snows  that  thro'  them  roll  ! 
So  may  she  feel  the  heat 
That  burns  within  my  soul." 

But  the  women  about  her  knew  that  she  was 
dying.  The  Parab^re  to  whom  we  may  forgive 
much,  because  she  loved  Aiss6  so  well,  fluttered 
around  her  with  pathetic  tenderness  ;  and  we  find 
her  forcing  upon  her  friend  the  most  beautiful  of 
her  personal  possessions,  a  splendid  box  of  crimson 


MADEMOISELLE    AISSE       6s 

jasper.  Even  Madame  de  Tencin,  whom  she  had 
always  kept  at  arm's  length,  and  who  had  rewarded 
her  with  aversion,  startled  her  now  with  expres- 
sions and  proofs  of  affection.  Madame  de  Ferriol 
herself,  with  her  sharp  temper  and  her  ugly 
speeches,  urged  upon  her  the  attentions  of  a  Jan- 
senist  confessor.  The  Chevalier,  understanding  at 
last  that  he  was  about  to  lose  her,  was  distracted 
with  anxiety,  and  hung  around  the  room  until  the 
ladies  were  put  to  their  wits'  end  to  get  rid  of  him. 
In  her  next  letter,  written  about  Christmas  of 
1732,  Aiss6  expresses  herself  thus  : — 

"  I  have  to  be  very  careful  how  I  deal  with  you 
know  whom.  He  has  been  talking  to  me  about  a 
certain  matter  as  reasonably  and  affectionately  as 
possible.  All  his  goodness,  his  delicate  way  of 
thinking,  loving  me  for  my  own  self,  the  interest 
of  the  poor  little  one,  to  whom  one  could  not  give 
a  position,  all  these  things  force  me  to  be  very 
careful  how  I  deal  with  him.  For  a  long  time 
I  have  been  tortured  with  remorse  ;  the  carrying 
out  of  this  would  sustain  me.  If  the  Chevalier 
does  not  keep  to  what  he  has  promised,  I  will  see 
him  no  more.  You  see,  Madame,  what  my  resolu- 
tions are  ;  I  will  keep  to  them.  But  they  will 
probably  shorten  my  life." 

The  explanation  of  this  passage  seems  to  be  that 
the  Chevalier,  having  put  off  marriage  so  long, 
was  anxious  not  to  break  his  vows  for  a  merely 
sentimental  union,  that  could  last  but  a  few  weeks. 
She  had  extracted,  it  would  seem,  a  sort  of  pro- 
mise from  him,  but  he  did  not  keep  it,  and  Aiss6 
died  unmarried. 

E 


66  FRENCH    PROFILES 

In  her  last  hours  Aisse  became  completely 
devote,  but  not  to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  unable 
to  see  the  humour  of  sending  such  light  ladies  as 
Madame  de  Parabere  and  Madame  du  Deffand 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Paris  to  search 
for  a  director  to  undertake  her  conversion.  At 
last  these  inexperienced  emissaries  discovered  a 
Pere  Boursault,  who  was  perhaps  of  their  world, 
for  he  was  the  son  of  the  dramatist,  the  enemy  of 
Moliere  ;  from  him  Aisse  received  the  consolations 
of  religion.  A  few  days  before  she  died  she  wrote 
once  more  to  Madame  Calandrini,  and  these  are 
the  last  words  which  we  possess  from  the  pen  of 
Ai'ss^ : — 

"  I  say  nothing  to  you  about  the  Chevalier. 
He  is  in  despair  at  seeing  me  so  ill.  You 
never  witnessed  a  passion  so  violent,  more  delicacy, 
more  sentiment,  more  greatness  and  generosity.  I 
am  not  anxious  about  the  poor  little  one  ;  she  has 
a  friend  and  protector  who  loves  her  tenderly. 
Good-bye,  dear  Madame  ;  I  am  too  weak  to  write 
any  more.  It  is  still  infinitely  sweet  to  me  to  think 
of  you  ;  but  I  cannot  yield  to  this  happiness  without 
tears,  my  dear  friend.  The  life  I  have  led  has  been 
very  wretched.  Have  I  ever  had  a  moment's 
enjoyment  ?  I  could  not  be  happy  alone  ;  I  was 
afraid  to  think  ;  my  remorse  has  never  once  left 
me  since  the  instant  when  I  began  to  have  my 
eyes  open  to  my  misconduct.  Why  should  I 
be  alarmed  at  my  soul  being  separated,  since  I  am 
persuaded  that  God  is  all  good,  and  that  the 
moment  when  I  begin  to  enjoy  happiness  will  be 
that  in  which  I  leave  this  miserable  body  ?  " 


MADEMOISELLE   AISSE       67 

On  the  14th  of  March,  1733,  Charlotte  Elizabeth 
Aiss6,  spinster,  aged  about  forty  years,  was  buried 
in  the  chapel  of  the  Ferriol  family,  in  the  Church 
of  St.  Roch,  in  Paris. 

1887. 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS 

Brief  and  unobtrusive  as  was  the  volume  of  Letlres 
Portugaises  published  in  Paris  in  1669,  it  exercised 
an  influence  on  the  sentimental  literature  of  Europe 
which  was  very  extraordinary,  and  to  which  we 
have  not  yet  ceased  to  be  subject.  Since  the 
revival  of  learning  there  had  been  no  collection  of 
documents  dealing  with  the  experiences  of  emotion 
in  which  an  element  of  Renaissance  feeling  had 
not  shown  itself  in  some  touch  of  rhetoric,  in  some 
flower  of  ornament,  in  some  trick  of  language  that 
concealed  what  it  desired  to  expose.  The  Portu- 
guese Letters,  slight  as  they  were,  pleased  in- 
stantly and  universally  because  they  were  entirely 
modern.  The  seventeenth  century,  especially  in 
France,  had  cultivated  epistolary  literature  with 
care,  even  with  too  much  care.  There  had  been 
letter-writers  by  profession,  and  the  value  of  their 
correspondence  has  been  weighed  and  found  want- 
ing. Even  in  England,  where  the  French  were 
held  up  as  models  of  letter-writing,  there  were  not 
wanting  critics.     Howell  wrote  in  1625  : — 

"  Others  there  are  among  our  next  transmarine 
neighbours  eastward,  who  write  in  their  own  lan- 
guage, but  their  style  is  so  soft  and  easy  that  their 
letters  may  be  said  to  be  like  bodies  of  loose  flesh 
without  sinews  ;  they  have  neither  joints  of  art 
nor  arteries  in  them.    They  have  a  kind  of  simper- 

68 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS      69 

ing  and  lank  hectic  expression,  made  up  of  a 
bombast  of  words  and  finical  affected  compliments 
only.  I  cannot  well  away  with  such  fieasy  stuff, 
with  such  cobweb  compositions,  where  there  is  no 
strength  of  matter — nothing  for  the  reader  to  carry 
away  with  him  that  may  enlarge  the  notions  of 
his  soul." 

We  may  be  quite  sure  that  Howell  had  Balzac 
in  his  eye  when  he  wrote  this  passage,  and  to 
Balzac  presently  succeeded  Voiture.  To  the  quali- 
ties of  Voiture's  famous  correspondence,  to  its 
emptiness,  flatness,  and  rhetorical  elegance,  signi- 
fying nothing  and  telling  us  nothing,  M.  Gaston 
Boissier  has  lately  dedicated  a  very  amusing  page 
of  criticism.  Even  in  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  French  were  conscious  of  their 
deficiency  as  letter-writers,  and  were  anxious  to 
remove  it.  Mademoiselle  de  Scudery,  who  was  as 
awkward  as  the  best  of  them,  saw  that  girls  ought  to 
know  how  to  express  their  feelings  briefly,  plainly, 
and  sincerely.  In  the  depths  of  the  wilderness  of 
Clelie  may  still  be  found  rules  for  letter-writing. 
But  the  time  was  not  quite  ripe,  and  it  is  notice- 
able that  it  was  just  before  the  publication  of 
the  Portuguese  Letters  that  Mademoiselle,  in  the 
agonies  of  her  grotesque  passion,  turned  over  the 
pages  of  Corneille  for  phrases  which  might  express 
the  complex  emotions  of  her  heart.  If  she  had 
waited  a  few  months  a  manual  of  the  tender 
passion  would  have  lain  at  her  hand.  At  all 
events,  the  power  to  analyse  the  feelings  in  simple 
language,  to  chronicle  the  minute  symptoms  of 
emotion    without    rhetoric,    closely    succeeds    the 


70  FRENCH    PROFILES 

great  success  of  these  letters  ;  nor  is  it  unworthy 
of  notice  that  they  appear  to  have  exercised  an 
instant  influence  on  no  less  a  personage  than 
Madame  de  Sevigne,  who  alludes  to  them  certainly 
twice,  if  not  oftener,  and  whose  great  epoch  of 
letter  -  writing,  following  upon  the  marriage  of 
Madame  de  Grignan,  begins  with  this  very  year, 
1669.  In  England  the  influence  of  the  Porht- 
guese  Letters,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  was 
scarcely  less  sudden  than  decisive.  That  we  in 
England  needed  such  an  influence  on  our  letter- 
writers  is  not  to  be  questioned,  although  the  faults 
of  English  correspondence  were  not  those  of  the 
admirers  of  Voiture  and  Balzac.  The  French 
needed  to  throw  off  a  rhetorical  insipidity  ;  the 
English  were  still  in  the  toils  of  the  ornamental 
allusiveness  of  the  Renaissance.  We  find  such  a 
sentence  as  the  following,  written  by  Mrs.  Penrud- 
dock,  in  1655,  on  the  night  before  her  husband's 
execution,  in  a  letter  which  has  been  preserved  just 
because  it  seemed  direct,  tender,  and  sincere ; — 

"Those  dear  embraces  which  I  yet  feel  and 
shall  never  lose,  being  the  faithful  testimonies  of 
a  loving  husband,  have  charmed  my  soul  to  such 
a  reverence  of  your  remembrance,  that,  were  it 
possible,  I  would,  with  my  own  blood,  cement 
your  dead  limbs  to  live  again,  and  (with  re- 
verence) think  it  no  sin  to  rob  Heaven  a  little 
longer  of  a  martyr." 

Such  persons  as  Mrs.  Penruddock  never  again 
on  such  occasions  as  this  wrote  in  this  particular 
manner,  when  Europe  had  once  read  the  Portu- 
guese Letters.     The  secret  of  saying  what  was  in 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS     71 

the  heart  in  a  straightforward  way  was  discovered, 
and  was  at  once  adopted  by  men  and  women  a 
hundred  times  more  accompHshed  and  adroit  than 
the  Canoness  of  Beja. 

A  romantic  and  mysterious  story  had  quite  as 
much  to  do  with  the  success  of  the  Portuguese 
Letters  as  any  directness  in  their  style.  In 
January  1669  a  Httle  duodecimo  of  182  pages, 
entitled  simply  Lettres  Portugaises,  was  issued  by 
Barbin,  the  leading  Paris  publisher.  The  Letters 
were  five  in  number  ;  they  were  neither  signed  nor 
addressed,  and  there  was  no  indication  of  date  or 
place.  A  prefatory  note  stated  that  they  were  a 
translation  of  certain  Portuguese  letters  written  to 
a  gentleman  of  quality  who  had  been  serving  in 
Portugal,  and  that  the  publisher  did  not  know  the 
name  of  the  writer.  He  abstained  from  saying 
that  he  knew  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  In- 
ternal evidence  showed  that  the  writer  was  a  nun 
in  a  Portuguese  convent,  and  that  she  had  been 
forsaken,  after  an  impassioned  episode,  by  a 
French  cavalry  officer  who  had  loved  and  had 
ridden  away.  He  had  passed,  at  the  head  of 
his  regiment,  through  the  narrow  streets  of  the 
town  where  she  lived,  like  the  hero  of  a  Border 
ballad,  not  a  bowshot  from  her  bower-eaves,  and 
she  had  leaned  over  her  balcony,  for  a  fatal 
instant,  and  all  was  lost  and  won.  The  little 
book  was  read  and  continued  to  be  read  ;  edition 
after  edition  was  called  for,  and  in  1678  the  letters 
were  stated  to  be  written  by  "  le  Chevalier  de 
C.  .  .  ."  Saint  Simon  and  Duclos  each  informed 
the  world  that  the  male  personage  was  the  Marquis 


72  FRENCH    PROFILES 

of  Chamilly,  long  afterwards  Marshal  of  France, 
and  a  mighty  warrior  before  the  Roi-Soleil.  But 
no  indiscretion  of  memoir-writers  gave  the  slightest 
information  regarding  the  lady.  All  that  appeared 
was  that  her  name  was  Mariana  and  that  her 
chamber-window  looked  across  to  the  only  place 
mentioned  in  the  letters  —  Mertola,  a  little  town 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  Guadiana.  But  in  1810 
Boissonade,  in  a  copy  of  the  first  edition,  found  a 
note  in  a  contemporary  hand,  stating  in  French 
that  the  letters  were  written  by  Mariana  Alca- 
forada,  a  nun  in  a  convent  at  Beja,  in  the  pro- 
vince of  Alem-Tejo. 

Beja,  the  theatre  of  the  Portuguese  Letters^  is 
a  small  mediaeval  city,  perched  on  a  hill  in  the 
midst  of  the  vast  fertile  plain  of  central  Portugal, 
and  boasting  to  this  day  a  ring  of  walls  and  a 
lofty  citadel,  which  make  it  a  beacon  from  all  parts 
of  the  surrounding  province.  What  the  Marquis 
of  Chamilly  was  doing  at  Beja  may  now  be  ex- 
plained, especially  as,  owing  to  the  recent  re- 
searches of  M.  Beauvois,  we  can  for  the  first  time 
follow  him  with  some  exactness.  The  French 
were  holding  a  very  equivocal  position  with  regard 
to  Portugal.  The  Queen  of  Portugal  was  a  French 
princess,  and  the  court  of  Lisbon  was  full  of 
Frenchmen,  but  Louis  XIV.  did  not  find  it  con- 
venient to  give  Don  Alfonso  his  open  support. 
The  fact  was  that  Mazarin,  anxious  to  meet  the 
Spaniards  half-way,  had  sacrificed  Portugal  in  the 
negotiations  of  the  He  des  Faisans.  He  had  no 
intention,  however,  of  really  leaving  his  old  allies 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  Madrid,  and  he  secretly 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS     73 

encouraged  the  Portuguese  to  fight  for  their  inde- 
pendence. The  Spaniards  had  no  sooner  seen 
France  sign  the  Treaty  of  the  Pyrenees,  late  in 
1659,  than  they  threw  themselves  on  the  frontier 
of  Portugal,  and  a  guerilla  war  began  that  lasted 
for  nine  years.  All  France  could  openly  do  was 
to  permit  her  own  recently  disbanded  foreign 
auxiliaries  to  take  up  service  with  the  King  of 
Portugal  ;  and  as  a  general  for  these  somewhat 
dubiously  constituted  troops,  the  Count  of  Schom- 
berg  offered  peculiar  advantages,  as  a  Huguenot 
and  a  citizen  of  Heidelberg.  Schomberg  arrived 
late  in  1660,  and  from  this  time  forward  success 
leaned  to  the  side  of  Portugal.  M.  Beauvois  has 
discovered  that  it  was  not  until  1663  that  a  young 
cavalry  officer  of  great  promise  accompanied  the 
non- official  envoy  of  France,  Ablancourt,  to  the 
court  of  Lisbon.  This  young  soldier  was  Noel 
Bouton,  then  known  under  the  title  of  Count  of 
St.  L6ger-sur-Dheune,  who  had  already,  although 
only  twenty-six  years  of  age,  seen  a  great  deal  of 
service  in  the  field.  He  was  the  eleventh  child  of 
a  fine  old  Burgundy  noble,  who  had  trained  him 
to  arms.  In  1656  he  had  been  taken  prisoner  at 
the  siege  of  Valenciennes,  and  had  attracted  the 
notice  of  the  king  by  a  succession  of  gallant  ex- 
ploits. He  is  the  hero,  though  in  a  most  unheroic 
light,  of  the  Portuguese  Letters. 

His  first  mission  to  Portugal  seems  to  have 
been  diplomatic  ;  but  on  the  30th  of  April  1664, 
being  at  Estremoz,  on  the  Spanish  frontier,  and 
in  the  heart  of  the  fighting,  he  received  from 
Schomberg  the  command  of  a  regiment  of  cavalry, 


74  FRENCH    PROFILES 

and  at  once  took  his  place  in  the  forefront  of  the 
work  in  hand.  His  name  is  henceforth  connected 
with  the  httle  victories  of  this  obscure  and  pro- 
vincial war,  the  results  of  which,  none  the  less, 
were  highly  important  to  Portugal.  The  theatre 
of  the  campaign  was  the  hilly  district  lying  between 
the  Douro  and  that  part  of  the  Guadiana  which 
flows  westward  before  its  course  changes  at  Jura- 
menha.  Chamilly  is  first  mentioned  with  glory 
for  his  part  in  the  ten  days'  siege  of  Valenga-de- 
Alcantara,  in  Spain,  in  June  1664.  A  month 
later  he  helped  to  defeat  the  Spaniards  under  the 
walls  of  Castello  Rodrigo,  a  mountain  fastness  in 
the  valley  of  the  Douro.  By  this  victory  the  in- 
dependence of  Northern  Portugal  was  secured. 
All  through  1665  Chamilly  and  his  dragoons 
hovered  around  Badajos,  winning  laurels  in  June 
at  the  great  battle  of  Villa  Vi90sa  ;  and  in  October, 
in  the  flight  on  Badajos,  after  the  victory  of  Rio 
Xevora.  The  war  now  sank  to  a  series  of  marches 
and  countermarches,  diversified  by  a  few  skirmishes 
between  the  Tagus  and  Badajos.  But  in  September 
1667,  after  the  Count  of  St.  L6ger,  who  is  now 
Marquis  of  Chamilly,  has  been  more  than  three 
years  in  Portugal,  we  find  him  for  the  first  time 
distinguishing  himself  in  the  plains  of  southern 
Alam-Tejo  by  an  attack  on  the  Castle  of  Ferreira, 
a  few  miles  from  Beja.  It  is  scarcely  too  much 
to  conjecture  that  it  was  either  while  advancing 
on,  or  more  probably  while  returning  from 
Ferreira,  that  he  passed  under  the  balcony  of  the 
Franciscan  convent  of  the  Conception,  and  won 
the  heart  of   the  susceptible  canoness.     So  long 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS     75 

as  the  war  was  being  prosecuted  with  ardour 
Chamilly  could  have  had  no  time  for  such  a 
liaison,  but  all  the  troubles  of  the  Portuguese  were 
practically  over  when  Ferreira  fell.  Six  months 
later,  on  the  13th  of  February,  1668,  peace  was 
proclaimed,  and  Spain  accepted  the  independence 
of  Portugal.^ 

A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  the  importance 
of  these  dates  and  names  in  judging  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  letters  of  Mariana.  Without  them 
the  critics  of  those  letters  have  been  left  with  no 
basis  for  conjecturing  when  or  how,  between  1661 
and  1668,  the  Portuguese  nun  and  the  French 
officer  met  and  parted.  We  now  see  that  for  the 
first  arduous  years  of  the  campaign  the  young 
Frenchman  was  not  near  Beja,  but  that  he  may 
well  have  spent  the  last  six  months  of  his  cam- 
paigning in  peace  within  or  beside  its  walls.  One 
or  two  otherwise  meaningless  phrases  in  the 
letters  are  now  easily  explicable  ;  and  the  pro- 
bability that  the  story,  as  tradition  has  sketched  it 
for  us,  is  mainly  correct,  becomes  vastly  greater. 
Before    considering   what   these    expressions    are, 

^  The  important  sequence  of  facts  here  given  with  regard  to  the 
military  record  of  Chamilly  in  Portugal  has  never  been  used  before 
in  any  critical  examination  of  the  Portuguese  Letters.  That  I  am 
able  to  give  it  is  owing  to  the  kindness  of  my  friend,  M.  Jusserand, 
who  has  pointed  out  to  me  a  very  learned  memoir  on  the  Chamilly 
family,  full  of  fresh  facts,  buried  by  a  Burgundian  historian,  M.  E. 
Beauvois,  in  the  transactions  for  1884  of  a  local  society,  the  "  Soci^t^ 
d'Histoire  "  of  Beaune.  I  think  I  never  saw  so  valuable  a  contribution 
to  history  concealed  with  so  successful  a  modesty.  I  am  the  more 
anxious  to  express  my  debt  to  M.  Beauvois  for  his  facts,  in  that  I 
wholly  disagree  with  his  conclusions  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  the 
Porttigtuse  Letters, 


76  FRENCH   PROFILES 

however,  it  may  be  best  to  take  the  Letters  them- 
selves into  our  hands. 

It  is  with  some  trepidation  that  I  confess  that, 
in  my  judgment,  the  central  fact  on  which  the 
chronicle  of  the  Portuguese  Letters  hangs  has 
hitherto  been  overlooked  by  all  their  editors  and 
critics.  As  the  Letters  were  published  without 
dates,  without  indications  of  place  or  address, 
they  took  a  sequence  which  has  ever  since  been 
religiously  adhered  to.  But  reading  them  through 
very  carefully — as  Mark  Pattison  used  to  say  all 
books  should  be  read,  pencil  in  hand — I  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  order  was  not 
merely  incorrect,  but  fatal,  if  persevered  in,  to 
any  historic  credence  in  the  Letters  as  a  whole. 
The  fourth  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  the 
earliest  in  date,  and  M.  Beauvois'  discoveries 
make  this  almost  certain.  We  must  understand 
that  all  the  five  letters  are  the  successive  appeals 
of  a  forsaken  woman,  who  repeats  her  expressions' 
of  love  and  lamentation  without  much  indication  of 
scene  or  season.  But  some  such  indication  may, 
by  reading  the  text  with  great  care,  be  discovered. 
The  fourth  letter,  which  I  believe  to  be  the  first, 
opens  thus  abruptly  : — 

"  Your  lieutenant  tells  me  that  a  storm  forced 
you  to  put  into  port  in  the  kingdom  of  Algarve. 
I  am  afraid  that  you  must  have  greatly  suffered  on 
the  sea,  and  this  fear  has  so  occupied  me  that  I 
have  thought  no  more  about  all  my  own  troubles. 
Are  you  quite  sure  that  your  lieutenant  takes 
more  interest  than  I  do  in  all  that  happens  to 
you  ?      Why  then    do  you  keep    him   better   in- 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS     77 

formed  ?  And,  finally,  why  have  you  not  written 
to  me  ?  I  am  very  unfortunate  if  you  found  no 
opportunity  of  writing  to  me  before  you  started, 
and  I  am  still  more  so  if  you  did  find  one  without 
using  it  to  write  to  me.  Your  injustice  and  your 
ingratitude  are  extreme,  yet  I  should  be  in  despair 
if  they  brought  you  misfortune." 

The  tone  of  this  is  angry  and  indignant,  but  it 
is  not  the  tone  of  a  woman  who  considers  herself 
abandoned.  She  has  evidently  parted  with  her 
lover  unwillingly,  and  with  suspicion,  but  she 
does  not  resign  the  right  to  scold  him.  More- 
over, it  is  noticeable  that  he  has  but  just  started, 
and  that  he  had  hardly  put  to  sea  before  he  was 
driven  into  a  port  in  Algarve.  Not  a  critic  of  the 
Portuguese  Letters  has  known  what  to  make  of 
this  latter  point,  for  Algarve  is  the  strip  running 
along  the  extreme  south  coast  of  Portugal,  and  no 
ship  leaving  Lisbon  for  France  could  possibly  be 
driven  into  ports  that  look  right  across  into  Africa. 
But  as  we  now  see  Chamilly  slowly  descending 
the  frontier  from  the  Douro  to  Beja,  and  as  we 
presently  find  Mariana  overwhelmed  with  emotion 
at  the  sight  of  the  road  to  Mertola,  we  have  but 
to  look  again  at  the  map  to  observe  that  Mertola 
would  be  naturally  the  first  stage  in  a  journey 
continued  south  to  the  mouth  of  the  Guadiana, 
which  is  navigable  from  that  town  onwards.  On 
reaching  the  sea  Chamilly  would  take  ship,  and 
would  most  naturally  be  driven  by  the  first  storm 
into  some  port  of  Algarve,  from  which  the  news 
would  promptly  be  brought  back  to  Beja.  When 
we  find  the  Portuguese   nun    speaking    of   some 


78  FRENCH    PROFILES 

early  confidences  as  made  "  five  or  six  months 
ago,"  and  when  we  recollect  that  the  capture  of 
Ferreira  took  place  five  months  before  the  peace 
with  Spain,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  events 
upon  which  the  Letters  are  founded  took  place 
between  September  1667  and  February  1668, 
soon  after  which  latter  date  Chamilly  doubtless 
made  an  excuse  for  setting  forth  for  France. 
Thus  a  series  of  minute  expressions  in  this  so-called 
fourth  letter — expressions  hitherto  meaningless  or 
misleading — are  shown  to  be  of  vital  importance 
in  testifying  to  the  genuineness  of  the  corre- 
spondence. 

Another  fragment  from  this  same  letter  will  help 
to  complete  the  picture  of  Chamilly's  desertion  : — 

"  You  have  taken  advantage  of  the  excuses 
which  you  had  for  going  back  to  France.  A  ship 
was  starting.  Why  did  you  not  let  her  start  ? 
Your  family  had  written  to  you.  Do  you  not 
know  what  persecutions  I  have  endured  from 
mine  ?  Your  honour  compelled  you  to  forsake 
me.  Have  I  been  so  solicitous  about  my  honour  ? 
You  were  forced  to  go  to  serve  your  king.  If  all 
that  is  said  of  him  be  true,  he  has  no  need  of  your 
help,  and  he  would  have  excused  you.  I  should 
have  been  only  too  happy  had  we  passed  our  lives 
together  ;  but  since  a  cruel  absence  had  to  divide 
us,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  ought  to  be  satisfied  in 
knowing  that  I  am  not  faithless  to  you.  Indeed, 
for  all  the  world  contains  would  I  not  commit  so 
base  an  action.  What !  have  you  known  the 
depths  of  my  heart  and  my  affection,  and  have 
yet  been  able  to  persuade  yourself  to  abandon  me 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS     79 

for  ever,  and  to  expose  me  to  the  terror  of  believ- 
ing that  you  will  for  the  future  only  think  of  me  to 
sacrifice  the  memory  of  me  to  some  new  passion  !  " 

The  freedom  with  which  this  cloistered  lady 
and  her  foreign  lover  met  has  been  objected  to  as 
improbable.  But  the  manners  of  Portugal  in  the 
seventeenth  century  gave  to  women  of  the  religious 
orders  a  social  freedom  denied  to  ordinary  wives 
and  daughters.  In  the  Me'moires  of  Ablancourt, 
whom  Chamilly  attended  on  his  first  mission  to 
Lisbon,  we  read  of  royal  parties  of  pleasure  at  the 
Convent  of  Santa  Speranza,  where  the  nuns  and 
courtiers  mingled  in  theatrical  representations 
before  the  king  and  queen.  Another  con- 
temporary account  admits  that  the  French  and 
English  were  so  much  beloved  in  Portugal  that 
some  liberty  was  allowed  to  them  beyond  what  a 
Portuguese  gentleman  might  indulge  in.  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  if  convents  might  without  scandal 
be  opened  to  men  in  social  intercourse,  it  is  not 
probable  that  they  would  be  closed  to  a  brilliant 
foreign  ally  fresh  from  Villa  Vigosa  or  Ferreira. 
But  we  must  again  allow  Mariana  Alcaforada  to 
tell  her  own  tale  : — 

"  Every  one  has  noticed  the  entire  change  in 
my  mood,  my  manners,  and  my  person.  My 
mother  has  spoken  to  me  about  it,  with  bitterness 
at  first,  and  then  with  a  certain  kindliness.  I  do 
not  know  what  I  said  to  her  in  reply  ;  I  fancy 
I  must  have  confessed  everything  to  her.  The 
strictest  of  the  nuns  here  are  sorry  to  see  what  a 
condition  I  am  in  ;  they  even  treat  me  on  account 
of  it  with  some  consideration  and  some  tender- 


8o  FRENCH    PROFILES 

ness.  Everybody  is  touched  at  my  love,  and 
you  alone  remain  perfectly  indifferent,  writing 
me  only  cold  letters,  full  of  repetitions ;  half  the 
paper  is  not  filled,  and  you  are  rude  enough  to 
let  me  see  that  you  are  dying  with  impatience  to 
be  done  writing.  Dofia  Brites  has  been  persecut- 
ing me  these  last  days  to  get  me  to  leave  my 
room  ;  and  fancying  that  it  would  amuse  me,  she 
took  me  for  a  turn  on  the  balcony  from  which 
one  has  a  view  of  Mertola  ;  1  went  with  her,  and 
at  once  a  cruel  memory  came  back  to  me,  a 
memory  which  kept  me  weeping  all  the  remainder 
of  the  day.  She  brought  me  back,  and  I  threw 
myself  on  my  bed,  where  I  could  but  reflect  a 
thousand  times  over  how  little  chance  there  was 
of  my  ever  being  cured.  Whatever  is  done  to 
solace  me  augments  my  suffering,  and  in  the 
remedies  themselves  I  find  intimate  reasons  why 
I  should  be  wretched.  I  have  often  seen  you 
pass  that  spot  with  an  air  that  charmed  me,  and 
I  was  on  that  balcony  on  that  fatal  day  when  I 
first  began  to  feel  the  symptoms  of  my  ill-starred 
passion.  I  fancied  that  you  wished  to  please  me, 
although  you  did  not  know  me.  I  persuaded 
myself  that  you  had  noticed  me  among  all  the 
ladies  that  were  with  me.  1  imagined  that  when 
you  drew  rein,  you  were  well  pleased  that  1  should 
have  a  better  sight  of  you,  and  that  I  should 
admire  your  skill  and  how  graceful  you  looked  on 
horseback.  I  was  surprised  to  notice  that  I  was 
frightened  when  you  took  your  horse  through  a 
difficult  place ;  the  fact  is  that  1  was  taking  a 
secret  interest  in  all  your  actions." 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS     8i 

We  see  that  he  wrote  to  her  at  first,  although 
not  from  that  port  of  Algarve,  in  which  he  had 
thought  of  nothing  but  business.  It  does  not 
appear  that  after  this  he  ever  wrote  again,  nor  as 
her  memory  loses  its  sharpness  does  she  ever,  after 
this  first  letter,  regain  the  same  clearness  of  re- 
miniscence. We  may  quote  once  more  from  this, 
the  most  interesting  of  the  famous  five.  It  is 
thus  that  Mariana  closes  her  pathetic  appeal : — 

"  I  want  to  have  the  portraits  of  your  brother 
and  of  your  sister-in-law.  Whatever  is  anything  to 
you  is  very  dear  to  me,  and  I  am  wholly  devoted 
to  what  concerns  you.  I  have  no  will  of  my  own 
left.  There  are  moments  in  which  it  seems  to  me 
that  I  should  be  humble  enough  to  serve  her 
whom  you  love.  .  .  .  An  officer  has  been  wait- 
ing for  this  letter  for  a  long  time  ;  I  had  made  up 
my  mind  to  write  it  in  such  a  way  that  you  may 
not  be  disgusted  when  you  receive  it,  but  I  see 
I  have  made  it  too  extravagant.  I  must  close  it. 
Alas !  it  is  out  of  my  power  to  do  so.  I  seem  to 
be  talking  to  you  when  I  write  to  you,  and  you 
become  a  little  more  present  to  me  then.  .  .  . 
The  officer  who  is  to  take  this  letter  reminds  me 
for  the  fourth  time  that  he  wishes  to  start.  What 
a  hurry  he  is  in  !  He,  no  doubt,  is  forsaking 
some  unhappy  lady  in  this  country.  Farewell ! 
it  is  harder  for  me  to  finish  my  letter  than  it  was 
for  you  to  abandon  me,  perhaps  for  ever." 

The  remaining  letters  give  fewer  indications  of 
date  and  sequence  than  the  fourth,  nor  are  they 
so  picturesque.  But  the  reader  will  not  seek  the 
Portuguese   Letters,    as    he   seeks    the    Me'moires    of 

F 


82  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Madame  de  Motteville,  or  even  the  correspond- 
ence of  Madame  de  Sevign^,  mainly  for  sparkling 
incident  and  the  pretty  details  of  contemporary 
life.  The  value  of  these  epistles  rests  in  their 
sincerity  as  a  revelation  of  the  heart.  Poor 
Mariana  had  no  inclination  to  describe  the  daily 
life  of  her  fellow-nuns  or  the  intrigues  of  society 
in  Beja.  She  has  been  deceived,  the  man  she 
loves  is  absent,  and  as  she  weeps  without  cessa- 
tion, she  cannot  help  confessing  to  herself  that 
she  does  not  expect  to  see  him  back  again. 

"  I  resigned  my  life  to  you,"  she  says  in  the 
so-called  first  letter,  "  as  soon  as  I  saw  you,  and  I 
feel  some  pleasure  now  in  sacrificing  to  you  what 
you  will  not  accept.  A  thousand  times  a  day  I 
send  my  sighs  out  after  you  ;  they  search  for  you 
everywhere,  and  for  all  reward  of  so  much  dis- 
quietude what  do  they  bring  me  back  but  too 
sincere  a  warning  from  my  evil  fortune,  which  is 
too  cruel  to  suffer  me  to  deceive  myself,  and 
which  says  to  me  every  moment.  Cease,  cease, 
unfortunate  Mariana  !  vainly  thou  dost  consume 
thyself,  vainly  dost  seek  a  lover  whom  thou  shalt 
never  see  again,  who  has  crost  the  ocean  to 
escape  from  thee,  who  is  now  in  France  in  the 
midst  of  pleasures,  who  gives  no  single  moment  to 
the  thought  of  thy  sufferings,  and  who  can  well 
dispense  with  all  these  thy  needless  transports." 

She  will  not,  however,  yet  admit  that  she  is 
wholly  deserted.  She  has  received  a  letter  from 
him,  and  though  its  tone  was  so  far  from  respond- 
ing to  her  own  that  it  threw  her  beside  herself  for 
three  hours,  it  has  re-awakened  her  hopes. 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS      83 

"Can  you  ever  be  contented  by  a  passion  less 
ardent  than  mine  ?  You  will,  perhaps,  find  else- 
where more  beauty  (although  you  used  to  tell  me 
that  I  was  beautiful  enough)  but  you  will  never 
find  so  much  love  again,  and  all  the  rest  is 
nothing.  Do  not  fill  out  your  letters  with  need- 
less matter,  and  you  may  save  yourself  the  trouble 
of  reminding  me  to  remember  you.  I  cannot 
forget  you,  and  I  cannot  forget,  too,  that  you 
made  me  hope  that  you  would  come  back  to  me 
for  awhile.  Ah  !  why  will  you  not  spend  all  your 
life  here  ?  Were  it  possible  for  me  to  quit  this 
wretched  cloister,  I  would  not  stay  in  Portugal  to 
see  whether  you  performed  your  promises.  I 
would  not  count  the  cost,  but  would  fly  to  seek 
you,  to  follow  you,  to  love  you.  I  dare  not 
persuade  myself  that  this  will  be ;  I  will  not 
nourish  such  a  hope  (though  there  might  be 
pleasure  in  delusion),  for  since  I  am  doomed  to 
be  unhappy,  I  will  have  no  feelings  inconsistent 
with  my  lot." 

The  violent  and  wretched  tone  of  the  "  Letters  " 
culminates  in  the  third,  which  is  unsurpassed  as  a 
revelation  of  the  ingenious  self-torture  of  a  sensi- 
tive mind  brooding  upon  its  own  despair.  The 
women  of  Paris  were  astonished  to  read  such 
pages  as  the  following,  where  complex  emotions 
which  they  had  often  experienced  or  imagined, 
but  had  never  been  able  to  formulate,  suddenly 
found  perfectly  direct  and  limpid  expression  : — 

"  I  cannot  persuade  myself  to  wish  that  you 
may  no  longer  be  thinking  about  me  ;  and,  indeed, 
to  speak  sincerely,  I  am  furiously  jealous  of  what- 


84  FRENCH    PROFILES 

ever  may  give  you  happiness,  and  of  all  that  may 
touch  your  heart  and  your  tastes  in  France.  I  do 
not  know  why  I  write  to  you.  I  see  well  enough 
that  you  will  only  pity  me,  and  I  do  not  wish  for 
your  pity.  I  am  very  angry  with  myself  when  I 
reflect  upon  all  that  I  have  sacrificed  for  you.  I 
have  exposed  myself  to  the  rage  of  my  relatives, 
to  the  severity  of  the  laws  of  this  country  against 
nuns,  and  to  your  ingratitude,  which  appears  to 
me  the  greatest  of  all  misfortunes.  Yet,  all  the 
while,  I  am  conscious  that  my  remorse  is  not 
sincere,  and  that  for  the  love  of  you  I  would  with 
all  my  heart  run  into  far  greater  dangers  than  any 
of  these." 

The  extraordinary  and  at  that  time  the  unique 
merit  of  the  Portuguese  nun,  as  a  letter-writer,  lies 
in  the  fact  that,  in  the  full  tempest  and  turmoil  of 
her  passion,  she  never  yields  to  the  temptation  of 
giving  herself  up  to  rhetoric,  or  rather  that  whenever 
she  does  make  a  momentary  concession  to  this  habit 
of  her  age,  she  doubles  on  herself  immediately,  and 
is  the  first  to  deprecate  such  false  flowers  of  speech. 
She  knows  that  her  letters  are  too  long,  although 
she  cannot  keep  them  within  bounds.  It  is  part 
of  the  torture  of  her  spirit  that  she  recognises 
better  than  any  monitor  from  without  could  teach 
her,  that  her  lamentations,  reproaches,  and 
entreaties  are  as  little  calculated  as  a  material 
flood  of  tears  would  be  to  revive  the  fire  upon  a 
hearth  of  sunken  embers.  As  she  clamours  at 
the  door  of  memory,  and  makes  the  air  resound 
with  her  importunity,  she  is  sane  enough  to  be 
aware  all  the  while  that  these  are  no  seductions 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS      85 

by  which  a  weary  heart  may  be  refreshed  and 
re-awakened ;  yet  is  she  absolutely  powerless  to 
moderate  her  own  emotion.  The  result  is  poignant 
to  the  last  degree ;  and  from  the  absence  of  all,  or 
almost  all,  surrounding  local  colour  of  incident  or 
tradition,  the  spectacle  of  this  distress  moves  and 
excites  the  reader  in  somewhat  the  same  fashion 
as  the  loud  crying  of  an  unseen  figure  out-of-doors 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night  may  move  the  helpless 
sympathy  of  one  who  listens  from  a  window. 

Nothing  more  is  known  of  this  shadowy 
Mariana  Alcaforada,  but  the  author  of  her  mis- 
fortunes figures  long  and  gloriously  in  French 
history.  His  fatuity,  if  not  his  heartlessness,  in 
allowing  her  letters  to  be  immediately  printed,  is 
a  blot  upon  his  humanity  in  our  eyes,  but  seems 
to  have  abated  his  magnificence  not  a  whit  among 
his  contemporaries.  It  would  be  idle  to  inquire 
by  what  means  the  letters  came  into  the  hands  of 
a  publisher.  In  1690,  upon  the  death  of  the 
translator,  it  was  admitted  that  they  had  been 
turned  out  of  Portuguese  into  excellent  French 
by  Pierre  Girardin  de  Guilleragues,  a  "Gascon 
gourmand,"  as  Saint-Simon  calls  him,  immortalised 
moreover  by  Boileau,  in  a  graceful  couplet,  as 
being — 

"  Born  master  of  all  arts  a  court  can  teach, 
And  skilled  alike  in  silence  and  in  speech." 

It  was  Guilleragues  who  said  of  Pelisson  that 
"  he  abused  the  permission  that  men  have  to  be 
ugly."  He  was  patronised  by  Madame  de  Main- 
tenon  and  died  French  ambassador  to  the  Porte 


86  FRENCH    PROFILES 

in  1689.  To  Guiileragues  is  attributed  the  com- 
position of  the  Portuguese  Letters  by  those  who 
seek  to  deny  that  Mariana  Alcaforada  ever  existed. 
But  in  their  own  day  no  one  doubted  that 
the  actors  in  this  Httle  drama  were  real  persons. 
Chamilly  is  described  by  Saint-Simon  as  a  tall, 
heavy  man,  extremely  good-natured  and  gallant 
in  fight,  although  to  listen  to  and  to  look  at, 
giving  little  suggestion  that  he  could  ever  have 
inspired  so  romantic  a  passion  as  that  revealed 
by  the  Portuguese  Letters.  To  this  there  is  an 
obvious  reply,  that  Saint-Simon  only  knew  Cha- 
milly in  his  mature  years,  and  that  there  is  no 
reason  why  a  heavy  dragoon  should  not  have 
been  very  attractive  to  a  Portuguese  maiden  at 
twenty-six  and  yet  seem  most  unattractive  at  forty- 
six  to  the  wittiest  of  memoir-writers.  To  the 
Portuguese  nun  he  undoubtedly  behaved  disgrace- 
fully ill,  and  not  at  all  like  a  Christian  gentleman  ; 
but  we  must  remember  that  his  own  age  judged 
such  bad  deeds  as  peccadillos  in  the  free  cam- 
paign of  love  and  war.  Chamilly's  subsequent 
career  was  unquestionably  glorious.  He  fought 
the  Turks  in  Candia,  he  commanded  the  troops  of 
the  Electors  of  Cologne  and  of  Munster,  he  won 
deathless  laurels  at  the  famous  siege  of  Grave  ; 
and,  finally,  after  twenty-five  campaigns,  he  ended 
as  Marshal  of  France,  and  married  a  wife  who 
was,  as  we  may  smile  maliciously  to  read  in  our 
Saint-Simon,  "  singularly  ugly." 

The  success  of  the  Portuguese  Letters  was 
attested  not  merely  by  the  multitude  of  successive 
editions   of  the   text,   but   by   the   imitations  and 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS     87 

continuations  which  were  foisted  upon  a  credulous 
public.  Only  seven  months  after  the  original 
publication  there  appeared  a  second  part  contain- 
ing seven  letters,  with  the  same  date,  1669,  on  the 
title-page.  These  did  not,  however,  pretend  to  be 
written  by  Mariana,  but  by  a  Portuguese  lady  of 
quality.  The  style  was  very  different,  as  the 
publisher  admitted,  and  the  letters  bear  every 
stamp  of  artifice  and  fiction.  They  were,  how- 
ever, greedily  accepted  as  genuine,  and  the  "  Dame 
Portugaise"  took  her  place  beside  the  "Religieuse." 
The  temptation  to  prolong  the  romance  was  irre- 
sistible, and  there  was  immediately  published  a 
pamphlet  of  "  Replies,"  five  in  number,  supposed 
to  be  sent  by  the  French  officer  to  the  Portuguese 
nun  in  answer  to  each  of  her  letters.  This  came 
from  a  Parisian  press ;  but  the  idea  of  publishing 
the  officer's  letters  had  occurred  simultaneously  to 
a  provincial  bookseller,  and  still  in  the  same  year, 
1669,  there  appeared  at  Grenoble  a  volume  of 
New  Repliesy  six  in  number,  the  first  being  not 
properly  a  reply,  but  an  introductory  letter.  This 
last  publication  openly  professes  to  be  fiction. 
The  editor  states  in  the  preface  that  being  "  neither 
a  girl,  nor  a  nun,  nor  even  perhaps  in  love,"  he 
cannot  pretend  to  express  the  sentiments  of  the 
heart  with  the  genuine  vigour  of  the  original 
letters ;  but  that,  as  Aulus  Sabinus  ventured  to 
reply  to  certain  of  the  heroic  epistles  of  Ovid, 
though  with  so  little  success  as  merely  to  heighten 
the  lustre  of  those  originals,  so  he  hopes  by  these 
inventions,  and  a  va&XQJeu  d esprit^  to  increase  the 
admiration    of    readers    for     Mariana's    genuine 


88  FRENCH    PROFILES 

correspondence.  All  this  is  very  honest  and  very 
legitimate,  but  so  eager  were  the  ladies  of  the 
seventeenth  century  to  be  deluded  that  this 
preface  of  the  guileless  editor  was  taken  to 
be  a  mere  mystification,  and  the  Grenoble  New 
Replies  were  swallowed  like  the  rest.  Some  idea 
of  the  popularity  of  the  Portuguese  Letters  may  be 
gained,  not  merely  from  the  vogue  of  these 
successive  imitations,  but  from  the  fact  that 
M.  Eugene  Asse,  the  latest  and  best  of  Mariana's 
editors,  has  described  no  fewer  than  sixteen 
editions  of  the  Letters  themselves,  issued  before 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  list  which 
would  seem  to  be  very  far  indeed  from  being 
complete. 

Rousseau  was  the  first  to  start  the  idea  that  the 
Portuguese  Letters  were  written  by  a  man.  He 
went  upon  no  external  evidence,  but  on  subtle 
and  in  truth  very  fanciful  arguments  regarding 
the  point  of  view  taken  by  the  writer.  No  one 
else  has  seriously  questioned  their  authenticity, 
until  quite  recently,  when  M.  Beauvois,  a  Bur- 
gundian  antiquary,  has  endeavoured  to  destroy 
our  faith  in  the  existence  of  the  Portuguese  Nun. 
This  gentleman  is  an  impassioned  admirer  of  the 
exploits  of  the  Marquis  of  Chamilly,  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  perceive  that  his  wish  to  discredit  the 
"  Letters "  is  due  to  his  desire  to  whitewash  the 
character  of  his  hero,  blackened  for  the  present, 
at  all  events  to  modern  eyes,  by  the  cruel  abandon- 
ment of  this  poor  religious  lady  in  the  Beja  con- 
vent. This  critic  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  allows  himself  to  speak  of  Mariana's  letters 


A   NUN'S   LOVE   LETTERS      89 

as  "  the  obsessions  of  a  Maenad."  Many  of  M. 
Beauvois's  acute  objections  are  met  by  the  re- 
arrangement of  the  letters  which  I  have  suggested 
above,  and  particularly  by  the  fact  that  the  fourth 
of  them  should  certainly  stand  the  first.  After  a 
careful  examination  of  his  criticism,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  light  of  the  important  historical  dates, 
with  regard  to  Chamilly's  record  in  the  Portuguese 
war,  which  M.  Beauvois  has  himself  brought  for- 
ward, I  for  one  am  more  persuaded  than  ever 
that  the  outline  of  the  story  as  we  know  it  is  true, 
and  that  the  letters,  or  something  Portuguese 
which  was  very  like  them,  were  actually  sent 
after  the  rascally  belldtre  when  he  made  his  way 
back  to  France  in  1668.  Bare  as  the  letters  are, 
there  are  nevertheless  little  touches  of  detail  here 
and  there,  little  inexplicable  allusions,  such  as  a 
real  correspondence  would  possess,  and  such  as 
no  forger  would  introduce.  It  would  be  tedious 
in  this  place  to  dwell  jminutely  on  this  sort  of 
evidence,  but  a  single  example  may  be  given.  In 
one  passage  the  nun  writes,  "  Ah  !  how  I  envy 
the  happiness  of  Emmanuel  and  of  Francisque. 
Why  am  not  I  always  with  you,  as  they  are  !  " 
Nothing  more  is  said  of  these  beings.  We  are 
left  to  conjecture  whether  they  were  fellow- 
officers,  or  servants,  or  dogs,  or  even  perhaps 
parrots.  A  forger  would  scarcely  leave  two 
meaningless  names  in  the  body  of  his  text  with- 
out some  indication  of  his  idea.  The  sincerity, 
moreover,  of  the  style  and  sentiments  is  extra- 
ordinary, and  is  observed  to  great  advantage  by 
comparing  the  various  continuations   and  replies 


90  FRENCH    PROFILES 

with  the  five  original  letters.  To  suppose  the  first 
little  volume  of  1669  to  be  a  deliberate  fiction 
would  be  to  land  us  in  the  more  serious  difficulty 
of  discovering  in  its  inventor  a  great  imaginative 
creator  of  emotional  romance.  The  hero-worship 
of  M.  Beauvois  has  not  convinced  me  that 
Mariana  never  gazed  across  the  olives  and  oranges 
to  Mertola,  nor  watched  the  cavalcade  of  her  false 
dragoon  file  down  into  the  gorge  of  the  Guadiana. 
The  French  critics  have  not  taken  any  interest 
in  the  influence  of  the  Portuguese  Letters  in  Eng- 
land. Yet  translations  and  imitations  of  these 
letters  became  very  numerous  in  this  country 
before  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The 
earliest  version  which  I  have  been  able  to  trace 
is  that  of  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange,  published  as  a 
very  tiny  little  book  of  Five  Love  Letters  from  a 
Nun  to  a  Cavalier,  in  1678  (December  28,  1677). 
In  a  short  preface  to  the  reader,  the  translator 
says,  "  These  five  letters  are  here  at  your  service. 
You  will  find  in  them  the  lively  image  of  an 
extravagant  and  an  unfortunate  passion,  and  that 
a  woman  may  be  flesh  and  blood  in  a  cloister 
as  well  as  in  a  palace."  This  translation  of 
L'Estrange's  went  on  being  reprinted  for  fifty 
years,  and  was  attended  on  its  successful  course 
from  one  toilet  to  another  by  a  variety  of  imita- 
tions, the  liveliest  of  which  is  attributed  to  the 
pen  of  the  vivacious  Major  Richardson  Pack. 
From  the  first  the  Portuguese  Letters  were  not 
presented  to  the  women  of  England  as  literature, 
but  as  models  of  sincere  letter-writing,  and  hence 
they  escaped  mention  in  our  solemn  handbooks  of 


A   NUN'S  LOVE   LETTERS     91 

bibliography  and  literary  history.  But  their  in- 
fluence was  extraordinary,  and  by  the  time  that 
the  Spectator  had  come  into  existence,  and  Richard 
Steele  was  sitting  over  his  wine,  "  the  slave  of 
beauty,"  writing  out  of  his  heart  to  Mary  Scurlock, 
the  men  and  women  of  England  had  learned  the 
lesson  which  the  nun  of  Beja  was  betrayed  to 
teach  them,  and  they  could  say  in  plain,  straight- 
forward sentences  exactly  what  it  was  in  their 
souls  to  express  to  one  another,  without  any  sort 
of  trope  or  rhetorical  ornament. 


1888. 


JULES  BARBEY  D'AUREVILLY 

Those  who  can  endure  an  excursion  into  the 
backwaters  of  Hterature  may  contemplate,  neither 
too  seriously  nor  too  lengthily,  the  career  and 
writings  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly.  Very  obscure  in 
his  youth,  he  lived  so  long,  and  preserved  his  force 
so  consistently,  that  in  his  old  age  he  became,  if 
not  quite  a  celebrity,  most  certainly  a  notoriety. 
At  the  close  of  his  life — he  reached  his  eighty-first 
year — he  was  still  to  be  seen  walking  the  streets  or 
haunting  the  churches  of  Paris,  his  long,  sparse 
hair  flying  in  the  wind,  his  fierce  eyes  flashing 
about  him,  his  hat  poised  on  the  side  of  his  head, 
his  famous  lace  frills  turned  back  over  the  cuff  of 
his  coat,  his  attitude  always  erect,  defiant,  and  for- 
midable. Down  to  the  winter  of  1 888  he  preserved 
the  dandy  dress  of  1840,  and  never  appeared  but 
as  M.  de  Pontmartin  has  described  him,  in  black 
satin  trousers,  which  fitted  his  old  legs  like  a  glove, 
in  a  flapping,  brigand  wideawake,  in  a  velvet  waist- 
coat, which  revealed  diamond  studs  and  a  lace 
cravat,  and  in  a  wonderful  shirt  that  covered  the 
most  artful  pair  of  stays.  In  every  action,  in  every 
glance,  he  seemed  to  be  defying  the  natural  decay 
of  years,  and  to  be  forcing  old  age  to  forget  him 
by  dint  of  spirited  and  ceaseless  self-assertion.  He 
was  himself  the  prototype  of  all  the  Brassards  and 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY       93 

Misnilgrands  of  his  stories,  the  dandy  of  dandies, 
the  mummied  and  immortal  beau. 

His  intellectual  condition  was  not  unlike  his 
physical  one.  He  was  a  survival — of  the  most 
persistent.  The  last,  by  far  the  last,  of  the  Roman- 
tiques  of  1835,  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  lived  on  into 
an  age  wholly  given  over  to  other  aims  and  ambi- 
tions, without  changing  his  own  ideals  by  an  iota. 
He  was  to  the  great  men  who  began  the  revival, 
to  figures  like  Alfred  de  Vigny,  as  Shirley  was  to 
the  early  Elizabethans.  He  continued  the  old  tra- 
dition, without  resigning  a  single  habit  or  prejudice, 
until  his  mind  was  not  a  whit  less  old-fashioned 
than  his  garments.  Victor  Hugo,  who  hated  him, 
is  said  to  have  dedicated  an  unpublished  verse  to 
his  portrait : — 

"  Barbey  d'Aurevilly,  formidable  imbecile," 

But  imbecile  was  not  at  all  the  right  word.  He 
was  absurd  ;  he  was  outrageous ;  he  had,  per- 
haps, by  dint  of  resisting  the  decrepitude  of  his 
natural  powers,  become  a  little  crazy.  But  im- 
becility is  the  very  last  word  to  use  of  this  mutin- 
ous, dogged,  implacable  old  pirate  of  letters. 

Jules  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  was  born  near  Valognes 

(the  "  V "which  figures  in  several  of  his  stories) 

on  the  2nd  of  November  1808.  He  liked  to  re- 
present himself  as  a  scion  of  the  bluest  nobility  of 
Normandy,  and  he  communicated  to  the  makers 
of  dictionaries  the  fact  that  the  name  of  his  direct 
ancestor  is  engraved  on  the  tomb  of  William  the 
Conqueror.  But  some  have  said  that  the  names 
of  his  father  and  mother  were  never  known,  and 


94  FRENCH    PROFILES 

others  (poor  d'Aurevilly !)  have  set  him  down  as 
the  son  of  a  butcher  in  the  village  of  Saint-Sauveur- 
le-Vicomte.  He  was  at  college  with  Maurice  de 
Gu^rin,  and  quite  early,  about  1830  apparently, 
he  became  personally  acquainted  with  Chateau- 
briand. His  youth  seems  to  be  wrapped  up  in 
mystery  ;  according  to  one  of  the  best  informed 
of  his  biographers,  he  vanished  in  1831,  and  was 
not  heard  of  again  until  1851.  To  these  twenty 
years  of  alleged  disappearance,  one  or  two  remark- 
able books  of  his  are,  however,  ascribed.  It  appears 
that  what  is  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  of  all 
his  writings,  Du  Dandyisme  et  de  Georges  Brummell, 
was  written  as  early  as  1842  ;  and  in  1845  a  very 
small  edition  of  it  was  printed  by  an  admirer  of 
the  name  of  Trebutien,  to  whose  affection  d'Aure- 
villy seems  to  have  owed  his  very  existence.  It  is 
strange  that  so  little  is  distinctly  known  about  a 
man  who,  late  in  life,  attracted  much  curiosity  and 
attention.  He  was  a  consummate  romancer,  and 
he  liked  to  hint  that  he  was  engaged  during  early 
life  in  intrigues  of  a  corsair  description.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  he  lived,  in  great  obscurity,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Caen,  probably  by  the  aid  of 
journalism.  As  early  as  1825  he  began  to  publish  ; 
but  of  all  the  productions  of  his  youth,  the  only 
one  which  can  now  be  met  with  is  the  prose 
poem  of  Amatde'e,  written,  I  suppose,  about  1835  ; 
this  was  published  by  M.  Paul  Bourget  as  a  curi- 
osity immediately  after  Barbey  d'Aurevilly's  death. 
Judged  as  a  story,  Amatde'e  is  puerile  ;  it  describes 
how  to  a  certain  poet,  called  Somegod,  who  dwelt 
on  a  lonely  cliff,  there  came  a  young  man  alto- 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY       95 

gether  wise  and  stately  named  Altai,  and  a  frail 
daughter  of  passion,  who  gives  her  name  to  the 
book.  These  three  personages  converse  in  magni- 
ficent language,  and,  the  visitors  presently  depart- 
ing, the  volume  closes.  But  an  interest  attaches 
to  the  fact  that  in  Somegod  {Quelque  Dieu  /)  the 
author  was  painting  a  portrait  of  Maurice  de 
Gu^rin,  while  the  majestic  Altai  is  himself. 
The  conception  of  this  book  is  Ossianic ;  but  the 
style  is  often  singularly  beautiful,  with  a  mar- 
moreal splendour  founded  on  a  study  of  Chateau- 
briand, and,  perhaps,  of  Goethe,  and  not  without 
relation  to  that  of  Gu^rin  himself. 

The  earliest  surviving  production  of  d'Aurevilly, 
if  we  except  Amai'dee,  is  L Amour  Impossible,  a 
novel  published  with  the  object  of  correcting  the 
effects  of  the  poisonous  Le'lia  of  George  Sand. 
Already,  in  this  crude  book,  we  see  something  of 
the  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  of  the  future,  the  Dandy- 
Paladin,  the  Catholic  Sensualist  or  Diavolist,  the 
author  of  the  few  poor  thoughts  and  the  sonorous, 
paroxysmal,  abundant  style.  I  forget  whether  it 
is  here  or  in  a  slightly  later  novel  that,  in  hastily 
turning  the  pages,  I  detect  the  sentiment,  "  Our 
forefathers  were  wise  to  cut  the  throats  of  the 
Huguenots,  and  very  stupid  not  to  burn  Luther." 
The  late  Master  of  Balliol  is  said  to  have  asked  a 
reactionary  undergraduate,  "What,  Sir  !  would  you 
burn,  would  you  burn  ?  "  If  he  had  put  the  question 
to  Barbey  d'Aureyilly,  the  scented  hand  would  have 
been  laid  on  the  cambric  bosom,  and  the  answer 
would  have  been,  "Certainly  I  should."  In  the 
midst  of  the  infidel  society  and  literature  of  the 


96  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Second  Empire,  d'Aurevilly  persisted  in  the  most 
noisy  profession  of  his  entire  loyalty  to  Rome, 
but  his  methods  of  proclaiming  his  attachment 
were  so  violent  and  outrageous  that  the  Church 
showed  no  gratitude  to  her  volunteer  defender. 
This  was  a  source  of  much  bitterness  and  recrimi- 
nation, but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  author  of 
Le  Pretre  Marie  and  Une  Histoire  sans  Nom  could 
expect  pious  Catholics  to  smile  on  his  very  peculiar 
treatment  of  ecclesiastical  life. 

Barbey  d'Aurevilly  undertook  to  continue  the 
work  of  Chateaubriand,  and  he  gave  his  full 
attention  to  a  development  of  the  monarchical 
neo-catholicism  which  that  great  inaugurator  had 
sketched  out.  He  was  impressed  by  the  beauty 
of  the  Roman  ceremonial,  and  he  determined  to 
express  with  poetic  emotion  the  mystical  majesty 
of  the  symbol.  It  must  be  admitted  that,  although 
his  work  never  suggests  any  knowledge  of  or  sym- 
pathy with  the  spiritual  part  of  religion,  he  has  a 
genuine  appreciation  of  its  externals.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  point  to  a  more  delicate  and  full  im- 
pression of  the  solemnity  which  attends  the  crepus- 
cular light  of  a  church  at  vespers  than  is  given  in 
the  opening  pages  of  A  un  Diner  dAihees.  In 
L Ensorceleey  too,  we  find  the  author  piously  follow- 
ing a  chanting  procession  round  a  church, and  ejacu- 
lating, "  Rien  n'est  beau  comme  cet  instant  solennel 
des  c^r^monies  catholiques."  Almost  every  one  of 
his  novels  deals  by  preference  with  ecclesiastical 
subjects,  or  introduces  some  powerful  figure  of  a 
priest.  But  it  is  very  difficult  to  believe  that  his 
interest  in  it  all  is  other  than  histrionic  or  pheno- 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY        97 

menal.  He  likes  the  business  of  a  priest,  he  Hkes 
the  furniture  of  a  church,  but  there,  in  spite  of  his 
vehement  protestations,  his  piety  seems  to  a  candid 
reader  to  have  begun  and  ended. 

For  a  humble  and  reverent  child  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Barbey  d'Aure- 
villy  takes  strange  liberties.  The  mother  would 
seem  to  have  had  little  control  over  the  caprices  of 
her  extremely  unruly  son.  There  is  scarcely  one 
of  these  ultra-catholic  novels  of  his  which  it  is 
conceivable  that  a  pious  family  would  like  to  see 
lying  upon  its  parlour  table.  The  Devil  takes  a 
prominent  part  in  many  of  them,  for  d'Aurevilly's 
whim  is  to  see  Satanism  everywhere,  and  to  con- 
sider it  matter  of  mirth  ;  he  is  like  a  naughty  boy, 
giggling  when  a  rude  man  breaks  his  mother's 
crockery.  He  loves  to  play  with  dangerous  and 
forbidden  notions.  In  I^  Pretre  Marie  (which,  to 
his  lofty  indignation,  was  forbidden  to  be  sold  in 
Catholic  shops)  the  hero  is  a  renegade  and  inces- 
tuous priest,  who  loves  his  own  daughter,  and 
makes  a  hypocritical  confession  of  error  in  order 
that,  by  that  act  of  perjury,  he  may  save  her  life, 
as  she  is  dying  of  the  agony  of  knowing  him  to 
be  an  atheist.  This  man,  the  Abb6  Sombreval,  is 
bewitched,  is  possessed  of  the  Devil,  and  so  is 
Ryno  de  Marigny  in  Une  Vieille  Maitresse,  and  Las- 
th^nie  de  Ferjol  in  Une  Histoire  sans  Norn.  This  is 
one  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly's  favourite  tricks,  to 
paint  an  extraordinary,  an  abnormal  condition  of 
spirit,  and  to  avoid  the  psychological  difficulty  by 
simply  attributing  it  to  sorcery.  But  he  is  all 
the  time  rather  amused  by  the  wickedness  than 

G 


98  FRENCH    PROFILES 

shocked  at  it.  In  Le  Bonheur  dans  le  Crime — the 
moral  of  which  is  that  people  of  a  certain  grandeur 
of  temperament  can  be  absolutely  wicked  with 
impunity — he  frankly  confesses  his  partiality  for 
"  la  plaisanterie  16gerement  sacrilege,"  and  all  the 
philosophy  of  d'Aurevilly  is  revealed  in  that  rash 
phrase.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  a  wounded  con- 
science expressing  itself  with  a  brutal  fervour,  but 
the  gusto  of  conscious  wickedness.  His  mind  is 
intimately  akin  with  that  of  the  Neapolitan  lady, 
whose  story  he  was  perhaps  the  first  to  tell,  who 
wished  that  it  only  were  a  sin  to  drink  iced 
sherbet.  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  is  a  devil  who  may 
or  may  not  believe,  but  who  always  makes  a  point 
of  trembhng. 

The  most  interesting  feature  of  Barbey  d'Aure- 
villy's  temperament,  as  revealed  in  his  imaginative 
work,  is,  however,  his  pre-occupation  with  his  own 
physical  life.  In  his  youth,  Byron  and  Alfieri  were 
the  objects  of  his  deepest  idolatry  ;  he  envied  their 
disdainful  splendour  of  passion  ;  and  he  fashioned 
his  dream  in  poverty  and  obscurity  so  as  to  make 
himself  believe  that  he  was  of  their  race.  He  was 
a  Disraeli — with  whom,  indeed,  he  has  certain  re- 
lations of  style — but  with  none  of  Disraeli's  social 
advantages,  and  with  a  more  inconsequent  and 
violent  habit  of  imagination.  Unable,  from  want 
of  wealth  and  position,  to  carry  his  dreams  into 
effect,  they  became  exasperated  and  intensified, 
and  at  an  age  when  the  real  dandy  is  settling 
down  into  a  man  of  the  world,  Barbey  d'Aurevilly 
was  spreading  the  wings  of  his  fancy  into  the 
infinite  azure  of  imaginary  experience.     He  had 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY       99 

convinced  himself  that  he  was  a  Lovelace,  a  Lauzun, 
a  Brummell,  and  the  philosophy  of  dandyism  filled 
his  thoughts  far  more  than  if  he  had  really  been 
able  to  spend  a  stormy  youth  among  marchionesses 
who  carried,  set  in  diamonds  in  a  bracelet,  the 
ends  of  the  moustaches  of  viscounts.  In  the 
novels  of  his  maturity  and  his  old  age,  therefore, 
Barbey  d'Aurevilly  loved  to  introduce  magnificent 
aged  dandies,  whose  fatuity  he  dwelt  upon  with 
ecstasy,  and  in  whom  there  is  no  question  that  he 
saw  reflections  of  his  imaginary  self.  No  better 
type  of  this  can  be  found  than  that  Vicomte  de 
Brassard,  an  elaborate,  almost  enamoured,  portrait 
of  whom  fills  the  earlier  pages  of  what  is  else  a 
rather  dull  story,  Le  Rideau  Cramoisi.  The  very 
clever,  very  immoral  tale  called  Le  Plus  Bel  Amour 
de  Don  Juan — which  relates  how  a  superannuated 
but  still  incredibly  vigorous  old  beau  gives  a 
supper  to  the  beautiful  women  of  quality  whom 
he  has  known,  and  recounts  to  them  the  most 
piquant  adventure  of  his  life — is  redolent  of  this 
intense  delight  in  the  prolongation  of  enjoyment 
by  sheer  refusal  to  admit  the  ravages  of  age.  Al- 
though my  space  forbids  quotation,  I  cannot  resist 
repeating  a  passage  which  illustrates  this  horrible 
fear  of  the  loss  of  youth  and  the  struggle  against 
it,  more  especially  as  it  is  a  good  example  of 
d'Aurevilly's  surcharged  and  intepid  style  : — 

"  II  n'y  avait  pas  la  de  ces  jeunesses  vert  tendre, 
de  ces  petites  demoiselles  qu'execrait  Byron,  qui 
sentent  la  tartelette  et  qui,  par  la  tournure,  ne 
sont  encore  que  des  6pluchettes,  mais  tons  6t6s 
splendides    et    savoureux,    plantureux    automnes, 


loo  FRENCH    PROFILES 

6panouissements  et  plenitudes,  seins  eblouissants 
battant  leur  plein  majestueux  au  bord  decouvert 
des  corsages,  et,  sous  les  camees  de  I'^paule  nue, 
des  bras  de  tout  galbe,  mais  surtout  des  bras 
puissants,  de  ces  biceps  de  Sabines  qui  ont  lutt6 
avec  les  Romains,  et  qui  seraient  capables  de 
s'entrelacer,  pour  I'arreter,  dans  les  rayons  de  la 
roue  du  char  de  la  vie." 

This  obsession  of  vanishing  youth,  this  intense 
determination  to  preserve  the  semblance  and  colour 
of  vitality,  in  spite  of  the  passage  of  years,  is, 
however,  seen  to  greatest  advantage  in  a  very 
curious  book  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly's,  in  some 
aspects,  indeed,  the  most  curious  which  he  has  left 
behind  him,  Du  Dandyisme  et  de  Georges  Brummell. 
This  is  really  a  work  of  his  early  maturity,  for  it 
was  printed  in  a  small  private  edition  so  long  ago 
as  1845.  It  was  not  published,  however,  until 
1 86 1,  when  it  may  be  said  to  have  introduced  its 
author  to  the  world  of  France.  Later  on  he  wrote 
a  curious  study  of  the  fascination  exercised  over 
La  Grande  Mademoiselle  by  Lauzun,  Un  Dandy 
d'avant  les  Dandys,  and  these  two  are  now  published 
in  one  volume,  which  forms  that  section  of  the 
immense  work  of  d'Aurevilly  which  best  rewards 
the  curious  reader. 

Many  writers  in  England,  from  Thomas  Carlyle 
in  Sartor  Resartus  to  our  ingenious  young  forger 
of  paradoxes,  Mr.  Max  Beerbohm,  have  dealt 
upon  that  semi-feminine  passion  in  fatuity,  that 
sublime  attention  to  costume  and  deportment, 
which  marks  the  dandy.  The  type  has  been,  as 
d'Aurevilly   does  not   fail   to   observe,   mainly   an 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY       loi 

English  one.  We  point  to  Beau  Nash,  to  Byron, 
to  Lord  Yarmouth,  to  Sheridan,  and,  above  all, 
"  k  ce  Dandy  royal,  S.  M.  Georges  IV. ;"  but  the 
star  of  each  of  these  must  pale  before  that  of 
Brummell.  These  others,  as  was  said  in  a  different 
matter,  had  "  other  preoccupations,"  but  Brummell 
was  entirely  absorbed,  as  by  a  solemn  mission,  by 
the  conduct  of  his  person  and  his  clothes.  So  far, 
in  the  portraiture  of  such  a  figure,  there  is  nothing 
very  singular  in  what  the  French  novelist  has  skil- 
fully and  nimbly  done,  but  it  is  his  own  attitude 
which  is  so  original.  All  other  writers  on  the 
dandies  have  had  their  tongues  in  their  cheeks. 
If  they  have  commended,  it  is  because  to  be  pre- 
posterous is  to  be  amusing.  When  we  read  that 
"dandyism  is  the  least  selfish  of  all  the  arts,"  we 
smile,  for  we  know  that  the  author's  design  is 
to  be  entertaining.  But  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  is 
doggedly  in  earnest.  He  loves  the  great  dandies 
of  the  past  as  other  men  contemplate  with  ardour 
dead  poets  and  dead  musicians.  He  is  seriously 
enamoured  of  their  mode  of  life.  He  sees  nothing 
ridiculous,  nothing  even  limited,  in  their  self-con- 
centration. It  reminds  him  of  the  tiger  and  of  the 
condor  ;  it  recalls  to  his  imagination  the  vast, 
solitary  forces  of  Nature  ;  and  when  he  contem- 
plates Beau  Brummell,  his  eyes  fill  with  tears  of 
nostalgia.  So  would  he  have  desired  to  live ; 
thus,  and  not  otherwise,  would  he  fain  have 
strutted  and  trampled  through  that  eighteenth 
century  to  which  he  is  for  ever  gazing  back  with 
a  fond  regret.  "To  dress  one's  self,"  he  says, 
"  should  be  the  main  business  of  life,"  and  with 


IC2  FRENCH    PROFILES 

great  ingenuity  he  dwells  upon  the  latent  but 
positive  influence  which  dress  has  had  on  men 
of  a  nature  apparently  furthest  removed  from  its 
trivialities  ;  upon  Pascal,  for  instance,  upon  Buffon, 
upon  Wagner. 

It  was  natural  that  a  writer  who  delighted  in 
this  patrician  ideal  of  conquering  man  should  have 
a  limited  conception  of  life.  Women  to  Barbey 
d'Aurevilly  were  of  two  varieties — either  nuns  or 
amorous  tigresses ;  they  were  sometimes  both  in 
one.  He  had  no  idea  of  soft  gradations  in  society: 
there  were  the  tempestuous  marchioness  and  her 
intriguing  maid  on  one  side ;  on  the  other, 
emptiness,  the  sordid  hovels  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
This  absence  of  observation  or  recognition  of  life 
d'Aurevilly  shared  with  the  other  Romantiques, 
but  in  his  sinister  and  contemptuous  aristocracy 
he  passed  beyond  them  all.  Had  he  lived  to  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  writings  of  Nietzsche, 
he  would  have  hailed  a  brother-spirit,  one  who 
loathed  democracy  and  the  humanitarian  temper 
as  much  as  he  did  himself.  But  there  is  no 
philosophy  in  Barbey  d'Aurevilly,  nothing  but  a 
prejudice  fostered  and  a  sentiment  indulged. 

In  referring  to  Nicholas  Nickleby,  a  novel  which 
he  vainly  endeavoured;  to  get  through,  d'Aurevilly 
remarks :  "  I  wish  to  write  an  essay  on  Dickens, 
and  at  present  I  have  only  read  one  hundred 
pages  of  his  writings.  But  I  consider  that  if 
one  hundred  pages  do  not  give  the  talent  of  a  man, 
they  give  his  spirit,  and  the  spirit  of  Dickens  is 
odious  to  me."  "The  vulgar  Dickens,"  he  calmly 
remarks  in  Journalistes  et  Pole'mistes,  and  we  laugh 


BARBEY   D'AUREVILLY       103 

at  the  idea  of  sweeping  away  such  a  record  of 
genius  on  the  strength  of  a  chapter  or  two  misread 
in  Nicholas  Nickleby.  But  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  was 
not  Dickens,  and  it  really  is  not  necessary  to 
study  closely  the  vast  body  of  his  writings.  The 
same  characteristics  recur  in  them  all,  and  the 
impression  may  easily  be  weakened  by  vain  repeti- 
tion. In  particular,  a  great  part  of  the  later  life 
of  d'Aurevilly  was  occupied  in  writing  critical 
notices  and  studies  for  newspapers  and  reviews. 
He  made  this,  I  suppose,  his  principal  source  of 
income  ;  and  from  the  moment  when,  in  1851,  he 
became  literary  critic  to  Le  Pays  to  that  of  his 
death,  nearly  forty  years  later,  he  was  incessantly 
dogmatising  about  literature  and  art.  He  never 
became  a  critical  force,  he  was  too  violent  and, 
indeed,  too  empty  for  that  ;  but  a  pen  so  brilliant 
as  his  is  always  welcome  with  editors  whose  design 
is  not  to  be  true,  but  to  be  noticeable,  and  to 
escape  '•  the  obvious."  The  most  cruel  of  Barbey 
d'Aurevilly's  enemies  could  not  charge  his  criticism 
with  being  obvious.  It  is  intensely  contentious 
and  contradictory.  It  treats  all  writers  and  artists 
on  the  accepted  nursery  principle  of  "  Go  and  see 
what  baby's  doing,  and  tell  him  not  to."  This  is 
entertaining  for  a  moment ;  and  if  the  shower  of 
abuse  is  spread  broadly  enough,  some  of  it  must 
come  down  on  shoulders  that  deserve  it.  But  the 
"  slashing  "  review  of  yester-year  is  dismal  reading, 
and  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  library  of  reprinted 
criticism  to  which  d'Aurevilly  gave  the  general 
title  of  Les  (Euvres  et  les  Hommes  is  very  enticing. 
He  had  a  great  contempt  for  Goethe  and  for 


I04  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Sainte-Beuve,  in  whom  he  saw  false  priests  con- 
stantly leading  the  public  away  from  the  true 
principle  of  literary  expression,  "  le  couronnement, 
la  gloire  et  la  force  de  toute  critique,  que  je 
cherche  en  vain."  A  very  ingenious  writer,  M. 
Ernest  Tissot,  has  paid  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  the 
compliment  of  taking  him  seriously  in  this  matter, 
and  has  written  an  elaborate  study  on  what  his 
criterium  was.  But  this  is,  perhaps,  to  inquire  too 
kindly.  I  doubt  whether  he  sought  with  any  very 
sincere  expectation  of  finding ;  like  the  Persian 
sage,  "he  swore,  but  was  he  sober  when  he 
swore  ?  "  Was  he  not  rather  intoxicated  with  his 
self-encouraged  romantic  exasperation,  and  de- 
termined to  be  fierce,  independent,  and  uncom- 
promising at  all  hazards  ?  Such  are,  at  all  events, 
the  doubts  awakened  by  his  indignant  diatribes, 
which  once  amused  Paris  so  much,  and  now 
influence  no  living  creature.  Some  of  his  dicta, 
in  their  showy  way,  are  forcible.  "  La  critique  a 
pour  blason  la  croix,  la  balance  et  la  glaive  ; " 
that  is  a  capital  phrase  on  the  lips  of  a  reviewer, 
who  makes  himself  the  appointed  Catholic  censor 
of  worldly  letters,  and  is  willing  to  assume  at  once 
the  cross,  the  scales,  and  the  sword.  More  of  the 
hoof  peeps  out  in  this  :  "  La  critique,  c'est  une 
intrepidity  de  I'esprit  et  du  caract^re."  To  a 
nature  like  that  of  d'Aurevilly,  the  distinction 
between  intrepidity  and  arrogance  is  never  clearly 
defined. 

It  is,  after  all,  in  his  novels  that  Barbey 
d'Aurevilly  displays  his  talent  in  its  most  interest- 
ing form.     His  powers  developed  late  ;  and  per- 


BA.RBEY    D'AUREVILLY       105 

haps  the  best  constructed  of  all  his  tales  is  Une 
Histoire  sans  Nom,  which  dates  from  1882,  when  he 
was  quite  an  old  man.  In  this,  as  in  all  the  rest, 
a  surprising  narrative  is  well,  although  extremely 
leisurely,  told,  but  without  a  trace  of  psychology. 
It  was  impossible  for  d'Aurevilly  to  close  his  stories 
effectively ;  in  almost  every  case,  the  futility  and 
extravagance  of  the  last  few  pages  destroys  the 
effect  of  the  rest.  Like  the  Fat  Boy,  he  wanted  to 
make  your  flesh  creep,  to  leave  you  cataleptic 
with  horror  at  the  end,  but  he  had  none  of 
Poe's  skill  in  producing  an  effect  of  terror. 
In  Le  Rideau  Cramoisi  (which  is  considered,  I 
cannot  tell  why,  one  of  his  successes)  the  heroine 
dies  at  an  embarrassing  moment,  without  any  dis- 
ease or  cause  of  death  being  suggested — she 
simply  dies.  But  he  is  generally  much  more 
violent  than  this  ;  at  the  close  of  A  un  Diner 
cCAthe'es,  which  up  to  a  certain  point  is  an 
extremely  fine  piece  of  writing,  the  angry  parents 
pelt  one  another  with  the  mummied  heart  of  their 
only  child  ;  in  Lc  Dessous  des  Cartes,  the  key  of  all 
the  intrigue  is  discovered  at  last  in  the  skeleton  of 
an  infant  buried  in  a  box  of  mignonette.  If  it  is 
not  by  a  monstrous  fact,  it  is  by  an  audacious  feat 
of  anti-morality,  that  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  seeks  to 
harrow  and  terrify  our  imaginations.  In  Le  Bon- 
heur  dans  le  Crime,  Hauteclaire  Stassin,  the  woman- 
fencer,  and  the  Count  of  Savigny,  pursue  their 
wild  intrigue  and  murder  the  Countess  slowly,  and 
then  marry  each  other,  and  live,  with  youth  far 
prolonged  (d'Aurevilly's  special  idea  of  divine 
blessing),  without  a  pang  of  remorse,  without  a 


io6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

crumpled  rose-leaf  in  their  felicity,  like  two 
magnificent  plants  spreading  in  the  violent 
moisture  of  a  tropical  forest. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  as  a  writer,  pure  and  simple, 
that  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  claims  most  attention. 
His  style,  which  Paul  de  Saint-Victor  (quite  in  his 
own  spirit)  described  as  a  mixture  of  tiger's  blood 
and  honey,  is  full  of  extravagant  beauty.  He  has 
a  strange  intensity,  a  sensual  and  fantastic  force, 
in  his  torrent  of  intertwined  sentences  and  pre- 
posterous exclamations.  The  volume  called  Les 
DiaholiqueSj  which  contains  a  group  of  his  most 
characteristic  stories,  published  in  1874,  may  be 
recommended  to  those  who  wish,  in  a  single 
example,  compendiously  to  test  the  quality  of 
Barbey  d'Aurevilly.  He  has  a  curious  love  of 
punning,  not  for  purposes  of  humour,  but  to 
intensify  his  style  :  "  Quel  oubli  et  quelle  oubliette  " 
{Le  Dessous  des  Cartes),  "  boudoir  fleur  de  pecher 
ou  de  peche "  [Le  Plus  bel  Amour),  "  renoncer  a 
I'amour  malpropre,  mais  jamais  a  I'amour  propre" 
i^A  un  Diner  d'Athe'es).  He  has  audacious  phrases 
which  linger  in  the  memory :  "  Le  Profil,  c'est 
r^cueil  de  la  beaut6 "  [Le  Bonheur  dans  le  Crime)  ; 
"  Les  verres  a  champagne  de  France,  un  lotus  qui 
faisait  [les  Anglais]  oublier  les  sombres  et  reli- 
gieuses  habitudes  de  la  patrie  ;  "  "  Elle  avait  I'air 
de  monter  vers  Dieu,  les  mains  toutes  pleines  de 
bonnes  oeuvres  "  {Memoranda). 

That  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  will  take  any  prominent 
place  in  the  history  of  literature  is  improbable. 
He  was  a  curiosity,  a  droll,  obstinate  survival. 
We  like  to  think  of  him  in  his  incredible  dress. 


BARBEY    D'AUREVILLY         107 

strolling  through  the  streets  of  Paris,  with  his 
clouded  cane  like  a  sceptre  in  one  hand,  and  in 
the  other  that  small  mirror  by  which  every  few 
minutes  he  adjusted  the  poise  of  his  cravat,  or  the 
studious  tempest  of  his  hair.  He  was  a  wonderful 
old  fop  or  beau  of  the  forties  handed  down  to  the 
eighties  in  perfect  preservation.  As  a  writer  he 
was  fervid,  sumptuous,  magnificently  puerile;  I 
have  been  told  that  he  was  a  superb  talker,  that 
his  conversation  was  like  his  books,  a  flood  of 
paradoxical,  flamboyant  rhetoric.  He  made  a 
gallant  stand  against  old  age,  he  defied  it  long 
with  success,  and  when  it  conquered  him  at  last, 
he  retired  to  his  hole  like  a  rat,  and  died  with 
stoic  fortitude,  alone,  without  a  friend  to  close  his 
eyelids.  It  was  in  a  wretched  lodging  high  up  in 
a  house  in  the  Rue  Rousselet,  all  his  finery  cast 
aside,  and  three  melancholy  cats  the  sole  mourners 
by  his  body,  that  they  found,  on  an  April  morn- 
ing of  1889,  the  ruins  of  what  had  once  been 
Barbey  d'Aurevilly. 


1897. 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET 

After  spending  the  summer,  as  usual,  in  his 
country  place  at  Champrosay,  Alphonse  Daudet 
came  back  no  more  to  winter  in  those  historic 
rooms  in  the  Rue  de  Belchasse  where  all  the  world 
had  laid  at  his  feet  the  tribute  of  its  homage  and 
curiosity.  His  growing  infirmities  had  made  the 
mounting  of  five  flights  of  stairs  finally  intolerable 
to  him.  He  took  an  apartment  on  the  first  floor. 
No.  41,  Rue  de  I'Universite,  which  was  far  better 
suited  to  his  condition,  and  here,  in  excellent  spirits, 
charmed  with  the  change,  and  eager  for  the  spring 
to  blossom  in  the  surrounding  gardens,  he  was 
proposing  to  receive  his  friends  at  Christmas.  But 
another  guest  long  since  due,  but  not  at  that 
moment  expected,  knocked  first  at  the  door  of  the 
still  unfinished  house.  On  the  evening  of  Decem- 
ber 16,  1897,  while  he  was  chatting  gaily  at  the 
dinner-table  in  company  with  his  wife  and  children, 
Alphonse  Daudet  uttered  a  cry  and  fell  back  in  his 
chair.  His  sons  flew  for  a  doctor,  but  in  vain  ; 
the  end  had  come — the  terrible  spectre  so  long 
waited,  so  mysteriously  dreaded  for  its  attendant 
horrors  of  pain  and  intolerable  decay,  had  appeared 
alone,  and  in  the  guise  of  a  beneficent  angel.  The 
last  page  of  Ma  Douleur,  when  it  comes  into  our 
hands,  will  be  the  record,  by  another  voice  than 


ALPHONSE   DAUDET        109 

Daudet's,  of  a  death  as  peaceful  and  as  benign  in 
all  its  circumstances  as  death  can  be. 


I 

It  is  not  possible  to  discuss  the  character  of 
Alphonse  Daudet  without  some  consideration  of 
his  personal  conditions.  In  every  page  of  his 
brilliant,  variegated,  emotional  books,  ever  trem- 
bling into  tears  or  flashing  into  laughter,  the  writer 
is  present  to  the  mind  of  the  instructed  reader. 
Few  men  have  been  born  with  a  keener  appetite 
for  life  or  an  aptitude  for  more  intense  enjoyment. 
Daudet  was  of  the  tribe  of  those  who,  as  Keats 
says,  "  burst  joy's  grape  against  their  palate  fine." 
It  is  highly  possible  that,  with  this  temperament 
and  a  southern  habit  of  life,  advancing  years  might 
have  tended  to  exaggerate  in  him  the  tumult  of  the 
senses ;  he  might  have  become  a  little  gross,  a 
little  noisy.  But  fortune  willed  it  otherwise,  and 
this  exquisite  hedonist,  so  amorous  of  life  and 
youth,  was  refined  and  etherialised  by  a  mysterious 
and  wasting  anguish.  It  was  about  the  close  of 
1 88 1  that,  while  engaged  in  writing  Sapho, 
Daudet  became  conscious  of  sudden  thrills  of 
agonising  pain  in  his  limbs,  which  attacked  him 
unexpectedly,  and  lacerated  every  part  of  his  frame 
in  turn.  From  this  time  forth,  he  was  never  free 
from  the  terror  of  the  pang,  and  he  once  used 
a  phrase  regarding  it,  which  awakens  a  vision  of 
Prometheus  stretched  on  Caucasus.  "  La  souf- 
france,  chez  moi,"  he  said,  "  c'est  un  oiseau  qui  se 
pose  partout,  tantot  ici,  tantot  la." 


no  FRENCH    PROFILES 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  Daudet  pub- 
lished L' ^vange'liste  in  1883,  he  dedicated  it  to 
Charcot.  It  was  that  great  master  of  diagnosis 
who  detected  in  what  the  family  physician  had 
supposed  to  be  neuralgia  the  first  symptoms  of 
that  malady  of  the  spinal  cord  to  which  the 
novelist  now  slowly  succumbed.  The  ravages  of 
this  terrible  disease,  while  they  gradually  affected 
more  and  more  completely  his  powers  of  loco- 
motion, spared  all  the  functions  of  the  head.  Since 
the  completion  of  Sapho,  it  is  true,  there  has 
been  apparent  a  flagging  in  Daudet's  constructive 
power  ;  but  this  need  not  be  attributed  to  disease. 
In  agility  of  conversation,  in  refinement  of  style, 
in  alertness  and  lucidity  of  mind,  Daudet  showed 
to  the  last  hour  no  observable  decline.  His  cour- 
age, on  the  other  hand,  his  heroic  resignation  and 
patience  were  qualities  that  raised  him  to  a  sort  of 
moral  sublimity.  They  would  have  done  credit  to 
the  most  placid  of  northerners,  but  as  the  orna- 
ment of  a  Provencal  in  early  middle  life,  the  blood 
in  whose  veins  was  quicksilver,  they  were  exquisite 
and  astonishing.  There  are  not  many  finer  pictures 
in  the  cabinet  of  modern  literary  history  than  that 
of  Alphonse  Daudet  waiting  to  be  racked  with 
anguish  from  moment  to  moment,  a  shawl  wrapped 
round  his  poor  knees,  lifting  the  ivory  lines  of  his 
face  with  rapture  to  the  beauty  of  a  flower,  or 
pouring  from  his  delicate  lips  a  flood  of  wit  and 
tenderness  and  enthusiasm.  It  carries  the  thought 
back  to  Scarron,  who  "  souffrit  mille  fois  la  mort 
avant  que  de  perdre  la  vie ; "  and  the  modern 
instance,  while  no  less  brave,  is  of  a  rarer  beauty. 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET        iii 

These  physical  considerations  are  so  important, 
they  form  so  essential  a  part  of  our  conception  of 
Daudet  and  of  Daudet's  conception  of  literature, 
that  they  cannot  be  passed  over,  even  in  a  brief 
outline  of  his  place  in  the  world  of  writers.  He 
was  not  one  of  those  who  shrink  from  being  contem- 
plated. His  work  was  not  objective  as  regarded 
his  own  person,  it  was  intensely — one  had  almost 
said  it  was  exclusively — subjective.  Large  portions 
of  his  fiction  are  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
selected  autobiography,  and  he  had  no  scruple  in 
letting  this  be  perceived.  He  took  in  later  life  to 
writing  prefaces  to  his  old  novels,  explaining  the 
conditions  in  which  they  were  composed.  He 
published  Trente  Ans  de  Paris  in  1882  ;  what 
it  was  not  quite  convenient  that  he  should  nar- 
rate himself  was  confessed  by  M.  Ernest  Daudet, 
in  Mon  Frere  et  Mot.  The  early  writings  of 
Alphonse  Daudet,  up  to  Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler 
Aine  at  least,  resolve  themselves,  it  is  plain,  into 
autobiography.  His  only  long  romance  of  the 
early  period,  Le  Petit  Chosej  begins  with  the 
sentence  "Je  suis  n^  le  13  Mai  18 — ,  dans  une 
ville  du  Languedoc."  So  speaks  the  hero,  and 
presently,  we  calculate  from  facts  recorded,  that 
18 —  stands  for  1840.  Well,  Alphonse  Daudet 
was  born  at  Nimes  on  May  31,  1840.  This 
changing  of  31  into  13  is  very  characteristic;  an 
analogous  alteration  is  often  the  only  one  which 
the  author  makes  in  turning  reality  into  a  novel. 

The  drawback  of  such  a  practice  is  that  in 
reading  the  charming  works  of  Alphonse  Daudet's 
first  thirty-five  years,  we  are  divided  in  allegiance 


112  FRENCH    PROFILES 

between  the  artist  and  the  man.  This  is  the 
danger  of  the  autobiographical  method  when 
carried  to  so  great  an  extreme,  and  confessed  so 
openly.  The  poor  little  hero  of  Petit  Chose  flying 
from  his  tormentors,  comes  up  to  Paris  in  a  pair  of 
india-rubber  goloshes,  having  no  shoes,  and  the 
author  makes  very  happy  and  pathetic  use  of  this 
little  incident.  I  remember,  however,  being  much 
annoyed  (I  hardly  know  why)  by  discovering,  as 
I  read  Mon  Frere  et  Mot,  that  Alphonse  really 
did  come  up  to  Paris  thus,  in  goloshes,  but  with- 
out shoes.  By  some  perversity  of  temper,  I  felt 
vexed  that  a  real  person  should  have  plagiarised 
from  the  invented  history  of  Petit  Chose,  and 
to  this  day  I  think  it  would  have  been  better  if  this 
piece  of  personal  history  had  not  been  unveiled  by 
M.  Ernest  Daudet.  But  as  a  family  the  Daudets 
are  unsurpassed  in  the  active  way  in  which  they 
take  their  musical-box  to  pieces,  the  result  being 
that  we  scarcely  know,  at  last,  whether  the  music 
was  the  primary  object,  or  was  merely  secondary 
to  the  mechanical  ingenuity.  This  is  a  doubt 
which  never  enhances  our  pleasure  in  the  fine 
arts. 

The  self-consciousness  which  coloured  all  the 
manifestations  of  the  mind  of  Alphonse  Daudet 
had  much  to  do  with  his  pathos,  his  really  very 
remarkable  command  over  our  tears.  There  is  no 
recent  French  writer  with  whom  we  weep  so  easily, 
and  the  reason,  without  doubt,  is  to  be  found  in 
his  own  aptitude  for  weeping.  If  his  nature  were 
harder,  if  he  were  not  so  sorry  for  himself,  we 
should  not  be   so   sorry   for   his   creations.     The 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET        113 

intense  and  sincere  sensibility  of  Daudet  disarms 
the  nerves  ;  there  is  no  resisting  his  pathos.  When 
he  chooses  to  melt  his  audience  he  can  scarcely 
be  heard  for  their  sobbing.  I  am  bound  to  say 
that  I  think  he  sometimes  carries  this  sensibility  to 
an  illegitimate  extreme  ;  it  makes,  for  instance,  a 
great  part  of  Jack  too  painful  for  endurance. 
In  this  otherwise  admirable  book  the  author 
becomes  like  the  too  emotional  attorney,  Baines 
Carew,  in  the  Bab  Ballads ;  he  seems  to  "  lie 
flat  upon  the  floor,  convulsed  with  sympathetic 
sob,"  until  the  reader,  bent  on  pleasure,  "  toddles 
off  next  door,"  and  gives  the  case  to  M.  de 
Maupassant  or  M.  Bourget. 

Yet  this  pathetic  sensibility,  if  occasionally  pushed 
to  excess,  has  been  one  of  the  most  vivid  of  the 
qualities  which  have  endeared  Alphonse  Daudet 
to  thousands  of  readers.  He  has  a  sense  of  the 
hysterical  sadness  of  life,  the  melancholy  which 
arises  in  the  breast  without  cause  at  some  common- 
place conjunction  of  incidents,  the  terror  of  vague 
future  ill,  the  groundless  depressions  and  faint  fore- 
bodings which  strike  men  and  women  like  the 
vision  of  a  spectre  at  noon-day.  Of  these  neurotic 
fallacies  Daudet  is  a  master  ;  he  knows  how  to 
make  us  shudder  with  the  pictures  of  them,  as, 
consummately,  in  Avec  Trots  Milk  Cent  Francs. 
Pure  melodious  pathos,  produced  by  the  careful 
balance  of  elements  common  to  all  human  frailty, 
and  harmonised  by  a  beautiful  balance  of  style, 
we  discover  frequently  in  the  Contes  du  Lundi, 
in  the  Alsatian  stories,  and  everywhere  in  Jack. 
To  the  last,  a  novel  in  Alphonse  Daudet's  hands 

H 


114  FRENCH    PROFILES 

was  apt  to  be,  what  he  calls  one  of  his  great 
books,  "  un  livre  de  piti6,  de  colere  et  d'ironie," 
and  the  irony  and  anger  were  commonly  founded 
upon  the  pity.  In  particular,  Le  Petit  Chose  is 
all  pity :  the  arrival  of  the  telegram  that  the  boy 
is  afraid  to  deliver,  the  extreme  lachrymosity  of 
Jacques,  the  agony  of  the  pion  in  sound  of  the  keys 
of  M.  Viot  (a  species  of  educational  Mr.  Carker), 
the  fate  of  Mme.  Eyssette  taking  refuge  among  her 
stingy  provincial  relations — almost  every  incident 
in  this  very  pretty  book  is  founded  upon  the 
exercise  of  slightly  exaggerated  sensibility.  The 
author's  voice  trembles  as  he  tells  the  tale  ;  when 
he  laughs,  as  every  now  and  then  he  does  so 
gaily,  we  give  a  sigh  of  relief,  for  we  were 
beginning  to  fear  that  he  would  break  down 
altogether. 

II 

From  this  dangerous  facility  in  telling  a  tale  of 
tears  about  himself  Alphonse  Daudet  was  delivered 
by  developing  a  really  marvellous  talent  for  ex- 
patiating on  the  external  and  decorative  side  of 
life.  Out  of  the  wreckage  of  his  experimental 
writings  he  has  saved  for  us  the  Letires  de  mon 
Moulin  and  the  Contes  Choisis  which  contain, 
with  Le  Petit  Chose,  all  that  needs  trouble  the 
general  reader,  although  the  amateur  of  litera- 
ture examines  with  interest  (and  finds  entirely 
Daudesque)  those  early  volumes  of  verse,  Les 
Amoureuses,  of  1857,  and  La  Double  Con- 
version of  1 86 1.  But  Lettres  de  mon  Moulin 
is  the  one  youthful  book  of  A.  Daudet  which   the 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET        115 

most  hurried  student  of  modern  French  Hterature 
cannot  afford  to  overlook.  In  its  own  way,  and 
at  its  best,  there  is  simply  nothing  that  surpasses 
it.  A  short  story  of  mediaeval  court  life  better 
than  La  Mule  du  Pape  has  not  been  told.  It 
is  not  possible  to  point  to  an  idyll  of  pastoral 
adventure  of  the  meditative  class  more  classic  in 
its  graceful  purity  than  Lcs  £toiles.  As  a 
masterpiece  of  picturesque  and  ironic  study  of  the 
life  of  elderly  persons  in  a  village,  Les  Vieux 
stands  where  "  Cranford  "  stands,  since  sheer  per- 
fection knows  neither  first  nor  last.  There  are 
Corsican  and  Algerian  sketches  in  this  incompar- 
able volume  ;  but  those  which  rise  to  the  memory 
first,  and  are  most  thoroughly  characteristic,  are 
surely  those  which  deal  with  country  life  and  legend 
in  the  dreamy  heart  of  Provence.  "  Dance  and 
Provencal  song  and  sunburnt  mirth" — that  is 
what  we  recall  when  we  think  of  the  Lettres  de 
mon  Moulin. 

From  his  ruined  mill  at  Fortvielle,  "  situated  in 
the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  in  the  very  heart  of 
Provence,  on  a  hillside  clothed  with  pine-trees  and 
green  oaks,  the  said  mill,  deserted  for  more 
than  twenty  years  and  incapable  of  grinding,  as 
appeareth  from  the  wild  vines,  mosses,  rosemaries, 
and  other  parasitic  growths  which  climb  to  the 
ends  of  its  sails,"  from  this  mill,  honourably  leased 
at  Pamp^rigouste,  in  presence  of  two  witnesses, 
Francet  Mamai,  fife-player,  and  Louiset,  called  Le 
Quique,  cross-bearer  to  the  White  Penitents, 
Alphonse  Daudet  writes  to  his  friends,  or  records 
a   story,   as   the   whim  takes  him.     He   recounts 


ii6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

legends  that  illustrate  the  habits  and  prejudices  of 
the  folks  around.  He  visits  the  poet  Mistral,  he 
accompanies  local  sportsmen  on  their  walks,  he 
spends  his  nights  with  the  customs  officers.  Some- 
times, to  gain  intenser  nawete,  to  get  closer  still  to 
the  heart  of  things,  he  borrows  the  voice  of  a  goat, 
of  a  partridge,  of  a  butterfly.  And  the  main  object 
of  it  all  is  to  render  the  external  impression  of  this 
Proven9al  life  more  delicately,  more  radiantly, 
more  intimately  than  has  ever  been  done  before. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  analyse  the  skill  with 
which  Daudet  contrives  to  produce  this  sense 
of  real  things  seen  intensely  through  the  bright- 
coloured  atmosphere  of  his  talent.  His  economy 
of  words  in  the  best  examples  of  this  branch  of  his 
work  is  notable.  The  curious  reader  of  his  little 
story,  "The  Beacon  of  the  Bloody  Isles,"  may 
ask  himself  how  it  would  be  possible  to  enhance 
the  mysterious  dazzlement  caused  by  the  emerging 
of  the  writer  from  the  dark  winding  stairs  up  into 
the  blaze  of  light  exhibited  above  : — 

"  En  entrant  j'6tais  6bloui.  Ces  cuivres,  ces 
stains,  ces  r^flecteurs  de  m^tal  blanc,  ces  murs  de 
cristal  bomb6  qui  tournaient  avec  des  grands  cercles 
bleuatres,  tout  ce  miroitement,  tout  ce  cliquetis 
de  lumi^res,  me  donnait  un  moment  de  vertige." 

What  could  be  more  masterly  than  that  ?  It  is 
said  in  the  fewest  possible  words,  yet  so  that  an 
impression,  in  a  high  degree  bewildering  and  com- 
plex, is  accurately  presented  to  us.  Scarcely  less 
marvellous  is  the  interior,  in  Les  Vt'eux,  where, 
under  the  miraculous  influence  of  the  Life  of 
St.  Irenaeus,  read  aloud  by  a  little  pensioner  in 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET        117 

a  blue  blouse,  not  the  old  gentleman  and  lady 
only,  but  the  canaries  in  their  cage,  the  flies  on 
the  pane,  and  all  the  other  elements  of  still  life 
are  plunged  in  deepest  sleep  at  noon.  And  of 
the  fantasia  about  Valencia  oranges  in  the  winter 
streets  of  Paris,  and  of  the  scene  in  "The  Two 
Inns,"  which  every  one  has  praised,  and  of  the 
description  of  the  phantom  visitors  who  come  un- 
invited to  supper  with  M.  Majesty,  and  of  the  series 
of  idyllic  vignettes  "  en  Camargue,"  what  shall  be 
said  ? — the  enumeration  of  Alphonse  Daudet's  suc- 
cesses in  this  direction  becomes  a  mere  catalogue. 
It  is  particularly  to  be  observed  that  with  his  in- 
cessant verbal  invention,  we  are  conscious  of  no 
strain  after  effect.  Daudet  is  never  pretentious, 
and  it  requires  some  concentration  of  mind,  some 
going  backward  over  the  steps  of  his  sentences,  to 
perceive  what  a  magic  of  continual  buoyancy  it  is 
that  has  carried  us  along  with  so  swift  a  precision. 
When  Alphonse  Daudet  began  to  write  in  Paris, 
a  new  set  of  critical  ideas  and  creative  aspirations 
were  setting  the  young  men  in  motion.  In  poetry, 
the  example  of  Baudelaire  in  noting  impressions, 
and  in  widening  the  artistic  repertory,  was  having 
an  electrical  influence,  while  Daudet  and  Zola, 
in  conjunction  with  those  elder  brethren  of  theirs, 
Flaubert  and  the  Goncourts,  were  endeavouring 
to  make  of  the  practice  of  novel-writing  some- 
thing more  solid,  brilliant,  and  exact  than  had 
been  attempted  before.  This  is  no  place  to  touch 
on  what  will  eventually  occupy  the  historian  of 
literature,  Alphonse  Daudet's  place  in  the  ranks  of 
the  naturalists.      But  it  is  important  to  note  that  he 


ii8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

possessed  one  quality  denied  to  his  distinguished 
friends,  denied  even  to  Flaubert,  namely,  his  grace- 
ful rapidity.  As  M.  Jules  Claretie  said  of  him  the 
other  day,  he  was  "  un  realiste  ail6,"  and  he  was 
preserved  from  the  dulness  and  pedestrian  jog-trot 
of  prosy  naturalism  by  this  winged  lightness  of  his, 
this  agility  in  sensation,  and  illuminating  prompti- 
tude in  expression.  His  hand  was  always  light, 
among  the  tribe  of  those  who  never  knew  when 
to  stop.  Daudet  could  not  fall  into  the  error  of 
Zola  in  his  "symphonies  of  odours,"  nor  destroy 
the  vitality  of  a  study  like  Cheriey  as  Edmond  de 
Goncourt  did,  by  the  pedantic  superfetation  of 
documentary  evidence.  He  was  a  creature  of  the 
sun  and  wind,  like  the  cicala  that  the  Greek  poets 
sung  of,  intoxicated  with  a  dew-drop,  and  flinging 
itself  impetuously  into  the  air,  while  it  struck 
melody  from  its  wings  with  its  own  flying  feet. 

HI 

Thus  palpitating  with  observation,  thus,  as  he 
himself  said,  "  hypnotise  par  la  realite,"  filled  to  the 
brim  of  his  quivering  nature  by  the  twin  sources 
of  pictorial  and  of  moral  sensitiveness,  seeing  and 
feeling  with  almost  abnormal  intensity,  his  sails 
puffed  out  with  the  pride  of  life  and  the  glory 
of  visual  sensation,  Daudet  prepared  himself  by 
a  myriad  experiments  for  the  true  business  of  his 
career.  After  a  somewhat  lengthy  and  arduous 
apprenticeship  as  an  observer  of  nature  and  of 
himself,  armed  with  those  little  green  books  of 
notes,    those    cahiers    of    which    we    have    heard 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET        119 

so  much,  he  set  out  to  be  a  great  historian 
of  French  manners  in  the  second  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  1874  he  made  a  notable 
sensation  with  Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler  Aim,  and, 
almost  simultaneously  with  Jack.  But  these  were 
immediately  excelled  by  Le  Nahab  (1877),  a  tren- 
chant satire  of  the  Second  Empire  and  the  Third 
Republic.  Then  followed,  in  a  very  different  key, 
that  extremely  delicate  study  of  the  dynastic  idea 
in  bankruptcy,  which  he  called  Les  Rot's  en  Exil 
(1879).  Daudet  had  built  up  an  edifice  of  fiction 
about  his  old  patron,  the  Due  de  Morny,  in  Le 
Nabab;  he  returned  to  politics  in  Numa  Roumesian 
(1881),  and  crystallised  his  invention  round  the 
legend  of  Gambetta.  This  book,  in  my  judgment, 
marked  the  apogee  of  Alphonse  Daudet's  genius; 
never  again,  so  it  seems  to  me,  did  he  write  a 
novel  quite  so  large,  quite  so  masterly  in  all  its 
parts,  as  Numa  Roumestan.  But  L'  Evangeliste 
(1883),  a  satiric  picture  of  fanatical  Protestantism, 
had  brilliant  parts,  and  a  great  simplicity  of  action ; 
while  in  Sapho  (1884),  which  M.  Jules  Lemaitre 
has  called  "  simplement  la  *  Manon  Lescaut '  de 
ce  si^cle,"  Daudet  produced  an  elaborate  study  of 
that  obsession  of  the  feminine,  which  is  so  dear  to 
our  Gallic  neighbours.  The  consensus  of  French 
criticism,  I  think,  puts  Sapho,  where  I  venture  to 
put  Numa  Roumestan,  at  the  head  of  Daudet's 
novels.  After  this  came  L'Immoriel  (1888),  Rose 
et  Ninette  (1892),  even  later  stories,  never  quite 
without  charm,  but  steadily  declining  in  imagina- 
tion and  vitality,  so  that  the  books  on  which 
Daudet  bases  his  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  great 


I20  FRENCH    PROFILES 

novelist  are  seven,  and  they  range  from  Jack  to 
Sapho,  culminating  as  I  most  obstinately  hold,  in 
Numa  Roumestan. 

In  looking  over  these  seven  extraordinary  books, 
which  we  read  in  succession  at  their  first  appear- 
ance with  an  enthusiasm  that  may  have  carried 
the  critical  faculty  away,  we  are  conscious  of  the 
brilliant  and  solid  effect  which  they  still  produce. 
They  stand  midway  between  the  rigidly  naturalistic 
and  the  consciously  psychological  sets  of  novels 
which  France  has  seen  flourish  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years,  and  on  the  whole,  perhaps,  they 
are  standing  the  test  of  time  better  than  either. 
The  moment  we  were  fairly  launched,  so  long 
ago,  upon  the  narrative  of  Fromont  Jeune  et  Risler 
Aim,  as  soon  as  we  became  acquainted  with  "  the 
blooming  and  sonorous  Delobelle,"  as  Mr.  Henry 
James  so  happily  calls  him,  when,  again,  a  very 
little  later,  we  were  introduced  to  all  the  flatulent 
humbugs  of  the  Maison  Moronval  in  Jack,  we 
acknowledged  that  here  was  come  at  last  a  great 
French  novelist,  with  whom  the  Anglo-Saxon  reader 
could  commune  with  unspeakable  delight.  This 
meridional,  who  cared  so  little  for  England,  who 
could  never  read  an  English  sentence,  seemed  from 
a  certain  limited  point  of  view  to  run  in  the  very 
channel  of  British  fiction.  He  has  been  called 
(alas  !  poor  man,  it  was  a  thorn  in  his  flesh  !)  the 
French  Dickens,  but  he  has  aspects  in  which  he 
seems  Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Anthony  Trollope  as  well, 
even  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  Rudyard  Kipling. 
A  whole  repertory  of  such  parallelisms  might  be 
drawn  out,  if  we  examined  Daudet  not  wisely  but 
too  well. 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET         121 

The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  with  all  his  violent 
southern  colour  and  temperament,  his  pathos,  his 
humour,  his  preference  for  the  extravagant  and 
superficial  parts  of  character  and  conduct  had  a 
greater  resemblance  to  the  English  than  to  the 
French  tradition  of  invented  narrative.  This  is 
true  of  works  written  before  Alphonse  Daudet 
could  possibly  have  touched  an  English  story. 
We  talk  of  his  affinity  to  Dickens,  but  that  relation 
is  much  more  strongly  marked  in  Le  Petit  Chose 
than  in  any  of  Daudet's  mature  works.  In  the 
very  beginning  of  that  story,  the  formidable  rage 
of  M.  Eyssette,  and  the  episode  of  Annou  who 
marries  in  desperation  because  she  has  lost  her 
"  place,"  are  more  like  pure  Dickens  than  any- 
thing in  Fromont  Jeune.  It  is  quite  certain,  from 
what  he  has  protested  over  and  over  again  (and 
did  he  not  fight  poor  M.  Albert  Delpit  that  he 
might  seal  his  protest  in  blood  ?),  that  Daudet's 
knowledge  of  all  English  literature,  the  works  of 
Dickens  included,  was  extremely  exiguous.  You 
could  probably  have  drawn  it  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle  without  crushing  it.  It  remains  true,  none 
the  less,  that  in  his  idea  of  how  to  entertain  by  a 
novel,  how  to  write  a  thrilling  story  of  pity,  anger, 
and  irony,  he  came  much  nearer  than  any  other 
Frenchman  to  the  English  standpoint.  When  we 
add  to  this  the  really  extraordinary  chastity  and 
delicacy  of  his  language,  the  tact  with  which,  even 
in  a  book  like  Sapho,  he  avoids  all  occasion  of 
offence,  and  has  therefore  been  a  well  of  pure  and 
safe  delight  to  thousands  of  young  Englishwomen, 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  non-critical 


122  FRENCH    PROFILES 

class  of  British  readers  look  upon  Alphonse 
Daudet  as  the  most  sympathetic  of  Continental 
novelists.  He  is  certainly  the  one  who  offers 
them  the  smallest  chance  of  springes  and  pitfalls 
along  their  innocent  pathway. 

In  his  great  novels,  the  art  of  Daudet  is  seen  in 
his  arrangement  and  adaptation  of  things  that  he 
has  experienced,  not  in  his  invention.  He  was 
never  happy  when  he  detached  himself  from  the 
thing  absolutely  observed  and  noted.  For  most 
readers,  I  suppose,  the  later  chapters  of  L^  Petit 
Chose  are  ruined  by  the  absurd  episode  of  Irma 
Borel,  the  Creole,  a  figure  laboriously  invented  a  la 
Paul  de  Kock,  with  no  faint  knowledge  of  any 
actual  prototype.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
this  failure  with  the  solid  success  of  the  portrait 
of  Sapho  fifteen  years  later,  when  Daudet  had 
made  himself  acquainted  with  this  type  of  woman, 
and  had  noted  her  characteristics  with  his  mature 
clairvoyance.  Even  in  his  more  purely  fantastic 
creations,  surely,  the  difference  between  what 
Daudet  has  seen  and  has  not  seen  is  instantly  felt. 
What  a  distinction  there  is  between  Tartarin  in 
Tarascon,  in  Algeria,  on  the  Righi — where  Daudet 
had  accompanied  him — and  Tartarin  in  the  South 
Seas,  where  his  creator  had  to  trust  to  books  and 
fancy !  I  am  inclined  to  push  this  so  far  as  even 
to  question  the  value  of  Wood's  Town,  a  story 
which  many  admirers  of  Daudet  have  signalled  for 
special  eulogy.  This  is  a  tale  of  a  peninsula 
somewhere  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  where  a  tropic 
city  is  built,  at  first  with  success,  but  only  to  be 
presently  overwhelmed  by  the  onset  of  the  virgin 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET         123 

forest,  which  defies  all  the  exertions  of  the  inhabi- 
tants ;  lianas  are  flung  from  roof  to  roof,  the 
municipal  buildings  are  roped  to  one  another  by 
chains  of  prickly-pear,  yuccas  pierce  the  floors 
with  their  spines,  and  fig-trees  rend  the  walls 
apart  ;  at  last  the  population  has  to  take  flight  in 
ships,  the  masts  of  which  are  already  like  forest- 
trees,  so  laden  are  they  with  parasitic  vegetation. 
The  whole  forms  a  fine  piece  of  melodramatic 
extravagance,  but  one  feels  what  an  infinitely 
truer,  and,  therefore,  infinitely  more  vivid  picture 
of  such  a  scene  Mr.  Cable  could  have  written  in 
the  days  when  he  was  still  interested  in  The 
Grandissimes  and  Mme.  Delphine. 

IV 

In  all  the  creations  of  Daudet,  as  we  have  said, 
the  fountain  of  tears  lies  very  close  to  the  surface. 
There  is,  however,  one  eminent  exception,  and  it  is 
possible  that  this,  in  its  sunny  gaiety,  its  unruffled 
high  spirits,  may  eventually  outlast  the  remainder. 
All  his  life  through,  Daudet  was  fascinated  by  the 
mirthful  side  of  southern  exaggeration.  He  set 
himself  to  invent  a  figure  which  should  unite  all 
the  qualities  of  the  meridional,  a  being  in  whom 
the  hallucination  of  adventurous  experiences  should 
be  carried  to  its  drollest  excess.  The  result  was 
pure  frolic :  the  Prodigious  Feats  of  Tartarin  de 
Tarascon  (1872).  Tartarin  the  boaster,  the 
mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord,  "  le  roi  des 
chasseurs  de  casquettes,"  has  bragged  so  long 
and  so  loudly  that  even  Tarascon  demands  con- 


124  FRENCH    PROFILES 

firmation.  And  so  he  sets  forth,  and  at  Algiers  he 
shoots  a  lion — an  old,  tame,  blind  lion  that  has 
been  taught  to  hold  a  platter  in  its  mouth  and 
beg  at  the  doors  of  mosques.  He  returns  to 
Tarascon,  still  boasting,  and  bringing  with  him  a 
mangy  camel,  "which  has  seen  me  shoot  all  my 
lions."  He  reposes  again  on  the  confidence  of 
Tarascon.  Then  in  1885,  Tartar  in  sets  forth 
anew,  this  time  to  climb  the  Alps,  being  President 
of  the  Tarascon  Alpine  Club,  and  once  more  forced 
to  prove  his  prowess.  Glorious  are  his  incred- 
ible ascents  and  accidental  adventures.  After 
a  thousand  farcical  drolleries,  gulled  and  gulling, 
back  he  comes  to  Tarascon,  with  its  blinding  dust 
and  its  blinding  sunlight,  to  the  country  where  it 
is  too  bright  and  too  hot  to  attempt  to  tell  the 
truth.  Still  later,  Daudet  made  an  effort  to  carry 
a  colony  from  Tarascon  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean  ;  but  this  time  he  was  less  vivacious  and 
more  cynical.  For  sheer  fun  and  merriment,  the 
two  earlier  books  about  Tartarin  remain,  however, 
unexcelled.  There  is  nothing  else  like  them  in 
recent  French  literature,  and  those  who  object  to 
Daudet's  other  stories  here  confess  themselves 
disarmed.  Tarascon  itself,  the  little  dry  town  on 
the  Rhone,  meanwhile  accentuates  the  joke  and 
adds  to  it  by  an  increasing  exasperation  against 
the  great  man  of  letters  who  has  made  its  tragi- 
comical exaltations  so  ridiculous  and  famous.  I 
have  but  recently  made  the  personal  observation 
that  it  is  impossible  to  purchase  the  works  of 
Daudet  in  the  book-shops  of  the  still-indignant 
Tarascon. 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET         125 


Two  years  before  his  death  M.  Alphonse  Daudet 
paid  his  first  and  only  visit  to  London,  accom- 
panied by  his  entire  family — by  his  whole  sniala, 
as  he  said,  like  an  Arab  sheikh.  Those  who  were 
privileged  to  meet  him  then  for  the  first  time 
were  astonished  at  the  inconsistences  of  his 
physical  condition.  To  see  Daudet  struggling 
with  infinite  distress  up  a  low  flight  of  stairs  was 
to  witness  what  seemed  the  last  caducity  of  a 
worn-out  frame.  But  his  lower  limbs  only  were 
paralysed ;  and  once  seated  at  table,  and  a  little 
rested  after  the  tortures  of  locomotion,  a  sort  of 
youth  reblossomed  in  him.  Under  the  wild  locks 
of  hair,  still  thick  though  striped  with  grey,  the 
eyes  preserved  their  vivacity — large  and  liquid 
eyes,  intermittently  concentrated  in  the  effort  to 
see  distinctly,  now  floating  in  a  dream,  now 
focussed  (as  it  were)  in  an  act  of  curiosity.  The 
entire  physical  and  phenomenal  aspect  of  Alphonse 
Daudet  in  these  late  years  presented  these  contra- 
dictions. He  would  sit  silent  and  almost  motion- 
less ;  suddenly  his  head,  arms,  and  chest  would 
be  vibrated  with  electrical  movements,  the  long 
white  fingers  would  twitch  in  his  beard,  and  then 
from  the  lips  a  tide  of  speech  would  pour — a 
flood  of  coloured  words.  On  the  occasion  when 
I  met  him  at  dinner,  I  recollect  that  at  dessert, 
after  a  long  silence,  he  was  suddenly  moved  to 
describe,  quite  briefly,  the  melon-harvest  at  Nimes 
when  he  was  a  boy.  It  was  an  instance,  no  doubt, 
of  the  habitual  magic  of  his  style,  sensuous  and 


126  FRENCH    PROFILES 

pictorial  at  its  best ;  in  a  moment  we  saw  before 
us  the  masses  of  golden-yellow  and  crimson  and 
sea-green  fruit  in  the  little  white  market-place, 
with  the  incomparable  light  of  a  Provenfal  morn- 
ing bathing  it  all  in  crystal.  Every  word  seemed 
the  freshest  and  the  most  inevitable  that  a  man 
could  possibly  use  in  painting  such  a  scene,  and 
there  was  not  a  superfluous  epithet. 

This  little  apologue  about  the  melons  took  us 
back  to  the  Daudet  with  whom  we  first  made  ac- 
quaintance, the  magician  of  the  Lettres  de  mon  Moulin. 
That  aged  figure,  trembling  with  the  inroads  of 
paralysis,  became  in  a  flash  our  charming  friend. 
Petit  Chose,  sobbing  under  the  boughs  of  the 
pomegranate  for  a  blood-red  flower  to  remind 
him  of  his  childish  joys.  Those  loose  wisps  of 
hair  had  been  dark  clusters  of  firm  curls  around 
the  brows  of  the  poet  of  Les  Amoureuses.  It  was 
pleasant  for  one  fated  \o  see  this  beloved  writer 
only  in  the  period  of  his  decay  to  feel  thus  that 
the  emblems  of  youth  were  still  about  him.  The 
spirit  had  not  surrendered  to  the  sad  physical 
decline,  and  so,  for  all  its  distressing  obviousness, 
the  latter  did  not  produce  an  overpowering 
sensation  of  melancholy.  It  emphasised  the 
impression  one  had  formed  in  reading  his  books  : 
with  Daudet  all  the  ideas  were  concrete  and 
positive.  He  had  no  thought,  properly  speaking, 
but  only  a  ceaseless  flow  of  violent  and  pictorial 
observations,  as  intense  as  they  were  volatile. 
These  had  to  be  noted  down  in  haste  as  they 
arrived,  or  else  a  fresh  sensation  would  come  and 
banish  them  for  ever.     He  was  an  impressionist 


ALPHONSE    DAUDET         127 

painter,  the  colours  on  whose  palette  were  words  of 
an  indescribable  abundance,  variety,  and  exactitude. 

For  some  years,  it  is  hardly  to  be  questioned 
that  Alphonse  Daudet  was  the  leading  novelist  of 
the  world.  From  1877,  when  he  published  Le 
Nabab,  to  1881,  when  he  reached  the  apex  of  his 
glory  in  Numa  Roumestan,  he  had  no  rival.  That 
was  a  position  which  it  was  impossible  that  he 
should  retain. 

It  is  too  early  to  attempt  to  fix  the  position 
which  Alphonse  Daudet  will  hold  in  French 
literature.  In  spite  of  the  extraordinary  pro- 
fessional manifestation  produced  immediately  after 
his  death  in  Paris,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  he  no 
longer  stood  in  the  affections  of  unprejudiced 
readers  quite  where  he  did.  In  1888  it  would 
have  required  considerable  courage  to  suggest 
that  Daudet  was  not  in  the  very  first  rank  of 
novel-writers  ;  in  1898,  even  the  special  pleading 
of  friendship  scarcely  urged  so  much  as  this.  It 
is  inevitable,  if  we  subject  Daudet  to  the  only  test 
which  suits  his  very  splendid  and  honourable 
career,  that  we  should  hesitate  in  placing  him 
with  the  great  creative  minds.  His  beautiful  talent 
is  dwarfed  when  we  compare  it  with  Balzac,  with 
Tourgenieff,  with  Flaubert,  even  with  Maupassant. 
He  is  vivacious,  brilliant,  pathetic,  exuberant,  but 
he  is  not  subtle  ;  his  gifts  are  on  the  surface.  He 
observes  rather  than  imagines  ;  he  belongs  to  the 
fascinating,  but  too  often  ephemeral  class  of 
writers  who  manufacture  types,  and  develop  what 
the  Elizabethans  used  to  call  "humours."  And 
this  he  does,  not  by  an  exercise  of  fancy,  not  by  a 


128  FRENCH    PROFILES 

penetrating  flash  of  intuition,  but  as  a  "  realist," 
as  one  who  depends  on  Httle  green  books  of  notes, 
and  docketed  bundles  of  pieces  justificatives. 

But  we  need  not  be  ungracious  and  dwell  on 
these  shortcomings  in  a  genius  so  charming,  so 
intimately  designed  to  please.  Whether  his  figures 
were  invented  or  noted,  they  live  brilliantly  in  our 
memories.  Who  will  lose  the  impression,  so 
amazingly  vivid,  left  by  the  "  Cabecilla "  in  the 
Contes  Choisis,  or  by  Les  Femmes  d' Artistes,  ''  ce  livre 
si  beau,  si  cruel,"  as  Guy  de  Maupassant  called  it  ? 
Who  will  forget  the  cunning,  timid  Jansoulet  as  he 
came  out  of  Tunis  to  seek  his  fortune  in  Paris  ? 
Who  the  turbulent  Numa  Roumestan,  or  that 
barber's  block,  the  handsome  Valmajour,  with  his 
languishing  airs  and  his  tambourine  ?  Who  Queen 
Fr6d6rique  when  she  discovers  that  the  diamonds 
of  lUyria  are  paste  ?  and  who  Mme.  Ebsen  in 
her  final  interview  with  Eline  ?  The  love  of  life, 
of  light,  of  the  surface  of  all  beautiful  things,  the 
ornament  of  all  human  creations,  illuminates  the 
books  of  Alphonse  Daudet.  The  only  thing  he  hated 
was  the  horrible  little  octopus-woman,  the  Fanny 
Legrand  or  Sidonie  Chebe,  who  has  no  other  object 
or  function  than  to  wreck  the  lives  of  weak  young 
men.  To  her,  perhaps,  he  is  cruel ;  she  was  hardly 
worth  his  steel.  But  everything  else  he  loves  to 
contemplate  ;  even  when  he  laughs  at  Tarascon 
he  loves  it  ;  and  in  an  age  when  the  cynical  and 
the  sinister  take  so  wide  a  possession  of  literature, 
our  thanks  are  eternally  due  to  a  man  who  built 
up  for  us  a  world  of  hope  and  light  and  benignity. 


THE  SHORT  STORIES  OF  ZOLA 

It  is  by  his  huge  novels,  and  principally  by  those 
of  the  Rougon-Macquart  series,  that  Zola  is  known 
to  the  public  and  to  the  critics.  Nevertheless,  he 
found  time  during  the  forty  years  of  his  busy 
literary  career  to  publish  about  as  many  small 
stories,  now  comprised  in  four  separate  volumes. 
It  is  natural  that  his  novels  should  present  so  very 
much  wider  and  more  attractive  a  subject  for 
analysis  that,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  even  in 
France  no  critic  has  hitherto  taken  the  shorter 
productions  separately,  and  discussed  Zola  as  a 
maker  of  conies.  Yet  there  is  a  very  distinct 
interest  in  seeing  how  such  a  thunderer  or 
bellower  on  the  trumpet  can  breathe  through 
silver  ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  short  stories 
reveal  a  Zola  considerably  dissimilar  to  the  author 
of  Nana  and  of  La  Terre — a  much  more  optimistic, 
romantic,  and  gentle  writer.  If,  moreover,  he 
had  nowhere  assailed  the  decencies  more  severely 
than  he  does  in  these  thirty  or  forty  short  stories, 
he  would  never  have  been  named  among  the 
enemies  of  Mrs.  Grundy,  and  the  gates  of  the 
Palais  Mazarin  would  long  ago  have  been  opened 
to  receive  him.  It  is,  indeed,  to  a  lion  with  his 
mane  en  papilloies  that  I  here  desire  to  attract  the 
attention   of    English    readers  ;    to    a   man-eating 

X29  J 


I30  FRENCH    PROFILES 

monster,  indeed,  but  to  one  who  is  on  his  best 
behaviour  and  blinking  in  the  warm  sunshine  of 
Provence. 

I 

The  first  pubHc  appearance  of  Zola  in  any  form 
was  made  as  a  writer  of  a  short  story.  A  southern 
journal.  La  Provence,  published  at  Aix,  brought 
out  in  1859  a  little  conte  entitled  La  Fee  Amoureuse. 
When  this  was  written,  in  1858,  the  future  novelist 
was  a  student  of  eighteen,  attending  the  rhetoric 
classes  at  the  Lyc^e  St.  Louis  ;  when  it  was 
printed,  life  in  Paris,  far  from  his  delicious  South, 
was  beginning  to  open  before  him,  harsh,  vague, 
with  a  threat  of  poverty  and  failure.  La  Fee 
Amoureuse  may  still  be  read  by  the  curious  in  the 
Contes  a  Ninon.  It  is  a  fantastic  little  piece,  in  the 
taste  of  the  eighteenth-century  trifles  of  Cr^billon 
or  Boufflers,  written  with  considerable  care  in  an 
over-luscious  vein — a  fairy  tale  about  an  enchanted 
bud  of  sweet  marjoram,  which  expands  and 
reveals  the  amorous  fay,  guardian  of  the  loves  of 
Prince  Lois  and  the  fair  Odette.  This  is  a  moon- 
light-coloured piece  of  unrecognisable  Zola,  indeed, 
belonging  to  the  period  of  his  lost  essay  on  "  The 
Blind  Milton  dictating  to  his  Elder  Daughter, 
while  the  Younger  accompanies  him  upon  the 
Harp,"  a  piece  which  many  have  sighed  in  vain 
to  see. 

He  was  twenty  when,  in  i860,  during  the  course 
of  blackening  reams  of  paper  with  poems  a  la 
Mussetf  he  turned,  in  the  aerial  garret,  or  lantern 
above   the   garret    of   35    Rue   St.  Victor,  to    the 


ZOLA  131 

composition  of  a  second  story — Le  Carnet  de  Danse. 
This  is  addressed  to  Ninon,  the  ideal  lady  of  all 
Zola's  early  writings — the  fleet  and  jocund  virgin 
of  the  South,  in  whom  he  romantically  personifies 
the  Provence  after  which  his  whole  soul  was 
thirsting  in  the  desert  of  Paris.  This  is  an 
exquisite  piece  of  writing — a  little  too  studied,  per- 
haps, too  full  of  opulent  and  voluptuous  adjectives  ; 
written,  as  we  may  plainly  see,  under  the  influence 
of  Th^ophile  Gautier.  The  story,  such  as  it  is,  is 
a  conversation  between  Georgette  and  the  pro- 
gramme-card of  her  last  night's  ball.  What 
interest  Le  Carnet  de  Danse  possesses  it  owes  to  the 
style,  especially  that  of  the  opening  pages,  in 
which  the  joyous  Provengal  life  is  elegantly  de- 
scribed. The  young  man,  still  stumbling  in  the 
wrong  path,  had  at  least  become  a  writer. 

For  the  next  two  years  Zola  was  starving,  and 
vainly  striving  to  be  a  poet.  Another  "  belvedere," 
as  Paul  A16xis  calls  it,  another  glazed  garret  above 
the  garret,  received  him  in  the  Rue  Neuve  St. 
Etienne  du  Mont.  Here  the  squalor  of  Paris  was 
around  him  ;  the  young  idealist  from  the  forests 
and  lagoons  of  Provence  found  himself  lost  in  a 
loud  and  horrid  world  of  quarrels,  oaths,  and  dirt, 
of  popping  beer-bottles  and  yelling  women.  A 
year,  at  the  age  of  two-and-twenty,  spent  in  this 
atmosphere  of  sordid  and  noisy  vice,  left  its  mark 
for  ever  on  the  spirit  of  the  young  observer.  He 
lived  on  bread  and  coffee,  with  two  sous'  worth  of 
apples  upon  gala  days.  He  had,  on  one  occasion, 
even  to  make  an  Arab  of  himself,  sitting  with 
the  bed-wraps  draped  about  him,  because  he  had 


132  FRENCH    PROFILES 

pawned  his  clothes.  All  the  time,  serene  and 
ardent,  he  was  writing  modern  imitations  of 
Dante's  Divina  Commedia,  epics  on  the  genesis  of 
the  world,  didactic  hymns  to  Religion,  and  love- 
songs  by  the  gross.  Towards  the  close  of  1861 
this  happy  misery,  this  wise  folly,  came  to  an 
end  ;  he  obtained  a  clerkship  in  the  famous 
publishing  house  of  M.  Hachette. 

But  after  these  two  years  of  poverty  and  hard- 
ship he  began  to  write  a  few  things  which  were 
not  in  verse.  Early  in  1862  he  again  addressed 
to  the  visionary  Ninon  a  short  story  called  Le 
Sang.  He  confesses  himself  weary,  as  Ninon 
also  must  be,  of  the  coquettings  of  the  rose  and 
the  infidelities  of  the  butterfly.  He  will  tell  her 
a  terrible  tale  of  real  life.  But,  in  fact,  he  is 
absolutely  in  the  clouds  of  the  worst  romanticism. 
Four  soldiers,  round  a  camp-fire,  suffer  agonies  of 
ghostly  adventure,  in  the  manner  of  Hofmann  or 
of  Petrus  Borel.  We  seem  to  have  returned  to 
the  age  of  1830,  with  its  vampires  and  its  ghouls. 
Simpltce,  which  comes  next  in  point  of  date,  is 
far  more  characteristic,  and  here,  indeed,  we  find 
one  talent  of  the  future  novelist  already  developed. 
Simplice  is  the  son  of  a  worldly  king,  who  despises 
him  for  his  innocence  ;  the  prince  slips  away  into 
the  primeval  forest  and  lives  with  dragon-flies  and 
water-lilies.  In  the  personal  life  given  to  the  forest 
itself,  as  well  as  to  its  inhabitants,  we  have  some- 
thing very  like  the  future  idealisations  in  L'Abbe 
Mouret,  although  the  touch  is  yet  timid  and  the 
flashes  of  romantic  insight  fugitive.  Simplice  is 
an    exceedingly  pretty   fairy  story,  curiously   like 


ZOLA  133 

what  Mrs.  Alfred  Gatty  used  to  write  for  senti- 
mental English  girls  and  boys :  it  was  probably 
inspired  to  some  extent  by  George  Sand. 

On  a  somewhat  larger  scale  is  Les  Voleurs  el 
I'Ane,  which  belongs  to  the  same  period  of  com- 
position. It  is  delightful  to  find  Zola  describing 
his  garret  as  "  full  of  flowers  and  of  light,  and  so 
high  up  that  sometimes  one  hears  the  angels  talk- 
ing on  the  roof."  His  story  describes  a  summer 
day's  adventure  on  the  Seine,  an  improvised  picnic 
of  strangers  on  a  grassy  island  of  elms,  a  siesta 
disturbed  by  the  somewhat  stagey  trick  of  a  fan- 
tastic coquette.  According  to  his  faithful  bio- 
grapher, Paul  Alexis,  the  author,  towards  the 
close  of  1862,  chose  another  lodging,  again  a 
romantic  chamber,  overlooking  this  time  the  whole 
extent  of  the  cemetery  of  Montparnasse.  In  this 
elegiacal  retreat  he  composed  two  short  stories, 
Sceur  des  Pauvres  and  Celle  qui  m'aime.  Of 
these,  the  former  was  written  as  a  commission 
for  the  young  Zola's  employer,  M.  Hachette,  who 
wanted  a  tale  appropriate  for  a  children's  news- 
paper which  his  firm  was  publishing.  After  read- 
ing what  his  clerk  submitted  to  him,  the  publisher 
is  said  to  have  remarked,  "  Vous  etes  un  r6volt6," 
and  to  have  returned  him  the  manuscript  as 
"  too  revolutionary."  Sasur  des  Pauvres  is  a  tire- 
some fable,  and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  why 
Zola  has  continued  to  preserve  it  among  his 
writings.  It  belongs  to  the  class  of  semi-realistic 
stories  which  Tolstoi  has  since  then  composed 
with  such  admirable  skill.  But  Zola  is  not  happy 
among    saintly  visitants    to    little   holy  girls,   nor 


134  FRENCH    PROFILES 

among  pieces  of  gold  that  turn  into  bats  and  rats 
in  the  hands  of  selfish  peasants.  Why  this  ano- 
dyne little  religious  fable  should  ever  have  been 
considered  revolutionary,  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive. 

Of  a  very  different  order  is  Celle  qui  niaime, 
a  story  of  real  power.  Outside  a  tent,  in  the 
suburbs  of  Paris,  a  man  in  a  magician's  dress 
stands  beating  a  drum  and  inviting  the  passers-by 
to  enter  and  gaze  on  the  realisation  of  their 
dreams,  the  face  of  her  who  loves  you.  The 
author  is  persuaded  to  go  in,  and  he  finds  himself 
in  the  midst  of  an  assemblage  of  men  and  boys, 
women  and  girls,  who  pass  up  in  turn  to  look 
through  a  glass  trap  in  a  box.  In  the  description 
of  the  various  types,  as  they  file  by,  of  the  aspect 
of  the  interior  of  the  tent,  there  is  the  touch  of  a 
new  hand.  The  vividness  of  the  study  is  not 
maintained  ;  it  passes  off  into  romanesque  ex- 
travagance, but  for  a  few  moments  the  attentive 
listener,  who  goes  back  to  these  early  stories,  is 
conscious  that  he  has  heard  the  genuine  accent  of 
the  master  of  Naturalism. 

Months  passed,  and  the  young  Proven9al  seemed 
to  be  making  but  little  progress  in  the  world.  His 
poems  definitely  failed  to  find  a  publisher,  and  for 
a  while  he  seems  to  have  flagged  even  in  the  pro- 
duction of  prose.  Towards  the  beginning  of  1864, 
however,  he  put  together  the  seven  stories  which  I 
have  already  mentioned,  added  to  them  a  short 
novel  entitled  Aventures  du  Grand  Sidoine,  pre- 
fixed a  fanciful  and  very  prettily  turned  address 
A  Ninon,  and  carried  o£f  the  collection  to  a  new 


ZOLA  135 

publisher,  M.  Hetzel.  It  was  accepted,  and  issued 
in  October  of  the  same  year.  Zola's  first  book 
appeared  under  the  title  of  Contes  a  Ninon.  This 
volume  was  very  well  received  by  the  reviewers, 
but  ten  years  passed  before  the  growing  fame  of 
its  author  carried  it  beyond  its  first  edition  of  one 
thousand  copies. 

There  is  no  critical  impropriety  in  consider- 
ing these  early  stories,  since  Zola  never  allowed 
them,  as  he  allowed  several  of  his  subsequent 
novels,  to  pass  out  of  print.  Nor,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  style,  is  there  anything  to  be  ashamed 
of  in  them.  They  are  written  with  an  uncertain 
and  an  imitative,  but  always  with  a  careful  hand, 
and  some  passages  of  natural  description,  if  a  little 
too  precious,  are  excellently  modulated.  What  is 
really  very  curious  in  the  first  Contes  a  Ninon  is  the 
optimistic  tone,  the  sentimentality,  the  luscious 
idealism.  The  young  man  takes  a  cobweb  for  his 
canvas,  and  paints  upon  it  in  rainbow-dew  with  a 
peacock's  feather.  Except,  for  a  brief  moment, 
in  Celle  qui  maimer  there  is  not  a  phrase  that 
suggests  the  naturalism  of  the  Rougon-Macquart 
novels,  and  it  is  an  amusing  circumstance  that, 
while  Zola  has  not  only  been  practising,  but  very 
sternly  and  vivaciously  preaching,  the  gospel  of 
Realism,  this  innocent  volume  of  fairy  stories 
should  all  the  time  have  been  figuring  among  his 
works.  The  humble  student  who  should  turn  from 
the  master's  criticism  to  find  an  example  in  his 
writings,  and  who  should  fall  by  chance  on  the 
Contes  a  Ninon,  would  be  liable  to  no  small  distress 
of  bewilderment. 


136  FRENCH    PROFILES 

II 

Ten  years  later,  in  1874,  Zola  published  a  second 
volume  of  short  stories,  entitled  Nouveaux  Contes  a 
Ninon.  His  position,  his  literary  character,  had  in 
the  meantime  undergone  a  profound  modification. 
In  1874  he  was  no  longer  unknown  to  the  public 
or  to  himself.  He  had  already  published  four  of 
the  Rougon  -  Macquart  novels,  embodying  the 
natural  and  social  history  of  a  French  family 
during  the  Second  Empire.  He  was  scandalous 
and  famous,  and  already  bore  a  great  turbulent 
name  in  literature  and  criticism.  The  Nouveaux 
Conies  a  Ninon,  composed  at  intervals  during  that 
period  of  stormy  evolution,  have  the  extraordinary 
interest  which  attends  the  incidental  work  thrown 
off  by  a  great  author  during  the  early  and  noisy 
manhood  of  his  talent.  After  1864  Zola  had 
written  one  unsuccessful  novel  after  another,  until 
at  last,  in  Therese  Raquin,  with  its  magnificent  study 
of  crime  chastised  by  its  own  hideous  after-gust, 
he  produced  a  really  remarkable  performance. 
The  scene  in  which  the  paralytic  mother  tries  to 
denounce  the  domestic  murderers  was  in  itself 
enough  to  prove  that  France  possessed  one 
novelist  the  more. 

This  was  late  in  1867,  when  M.  Zola  was  in  his 
twenty-eighth  year.  A  phrase  of  Louis  Ulbach's, 
in  reviewing  Therese  Raquin,  which  he  called  '•  lit- 
t^rature  putride,"  is  regarded  as  having  started  the 
question  of  Naturalism,  and  M.  Zola  who  had  not, 
up  to  that  time,  had  any  notion  of  founding  a 
school,  or  even  of  moving  in  any  definite  direc- 


ZOLA  137 

tion,  was  led  to  adopt  the  theories  which  we 
identify  with  his  name  during  the  angry  dispute 
with  Ulbach.  In  1865  he  had  begun  to  be  drawn 
towards  Edmond  and  Jules  de  Goncourt,  and  to 
feel,  as  he  puts  it,  that  in  the  salons  of  the  Parnas- 
sians he  was  growing  more  and  more  out  of  his 
element  "  among  so  many  impenitent  romantiques." 
Meanwhile  he  was  for  ever  feeding  the  furnaces  of 
journalism,  scorched  and  desiccated  by  the  blaze 
of  public  life,  by  the  daily  struggle  for  bread. 
He  was  roughly  affronting  the  taste  of  those  who 
differed  from  him,  with  rude  hands  he  was  thrust- 
ing out  of  his  path  the  timid,  the  dull,  the  old- 
fashioned.  The  spectacle  of  these  years  of  Zola's 
life  is  not  altogether  a  pleasant  one,  but  it  leaves 
on  us  the  impression  of  a  colossal  purpose  pursued 
with  force  and  courage.  In  1871  the  first  of  the 
Rougon-Macquart  novels  appeared,  and  the  author 
was  fairly  launched  on  his  career.  He  was  writ- 
ing books  of  large  size,  in  which  he  was  endea- 
vouring to  tell  the  truth  about  modern  life  with 
absolute  veracity,  no  matter  how  squalid,  or  ugly, 
or  venomous  that  truth  might  be. 

But  during  the  whole  of  this  tempestuous  decade 
Zola,  in  his  hot  battlefield  of  Paris,  heard  the 
voice  of  Ninon  calling  to  him  from  the  leafy 
hollows,  from  behind  the  hawthorn  hedges,  of 
his  own  dewy  Provence — the  cool  Provence  of 
earliest  flowery  spring.  When  he  caught  these 
accents  whistling  to  his  memory  from  the  past, 
and  could  no  longer  resist  answering  them,  he 
was  accustomed  to  write  a  little  contey  light  and 
innocent,  and  brief  enough  to  be  the  note  of   a 


138  FRENCH    PROFILES 

caged  bird  from  indoors  answering  its  mate  in  the 
trees  of  the  garden.  This  is  the  real  secret  of 
the  utterly  incongruous  tone  of  the  Nouveaux  Contes 
when  we  compare  them  with  the  Cure'e  and  Made- 
leine Fe'rat  of  the  same  period.  It  would  be  utterly 
to  misunderstand  the  nature  of  Zola  to  complain, 
as  Pierre  Loti  did  the  other  day,  that  the  coarse- 
ness and  cynicism  of  the  naturalistic  novel,  the 
tone  of  a  ball  at  Belleville,  could  not  sincerely 
co-exist  with  a  love  of  beauty,  or  with  a  nostalgia 
for  youth  and  country  pleasures.  In  the  short 
stories  of  the  period  of  which  we  are  speaking, 
that  poet  who  dies  in  most  middle-aged  men 
lived  on  for  Zola,  artificially,  in  a  crystal  box 
carefully  addressed  "  a  Ninon  la-bas,"  a  box  into 
which,  at  intervals,  the  master  of  the  Realists 
slipped  a  document  of  the  most  refined  ideality. 

Of  these  tiny  stories — there  are  twelve  of  them 
within  one  hundred  pages — not  all  are  quite 
worthy  of  his  genius.  He  grimaces  a  little  too 
much  in  Les  Epaules  de  la  Marquise,  and  M. 
Bourget  has  since  analysed  the  little  self-indulgent 
devote  of  quality  more  successfully  than  Zola  did 
in  Le  Jeilne.  But  most  of  them  are  very 
charming.  Here  is  Le  Grand  Michu,  a  study 
of  gallant,  stupid  boyhood  ;  here  Les  Paradis 
des  Chats,  one  of  the  author's  rare  escapes  into 
humour.  In  Le  Forgeron,  with  its  story  of  the 
jaded  and  cynical  town-man,  who  finds  health  and 
happiness  by  retiring  to  a  lodging  within  the  very 
thunders  of  a  village  blacksmith,  we  have  a  pro- 
found criticism  of  life.  Le  Petit  Village  is  in- 
teresting   to   us   here,   because,   with   its    pathetic 


ZOLA  139 

picture  of  Woerth  in  Alsace,  it  is  the  earliest  of 
Zola's  studies  of  war.  In  other  of  these  stories 
the  spirit  of  Watteau  seems  to  inspire  the  sooty 
Vulcan  of  Naturalism.  He  prattles  of  moss-grown 
fountains,  of  alleys  of  wild  strawberries,  of  ren- 
dezvous under  the  wings  of  the  larks,  of  moonlight 
strolls  in  the  bosquets  of  a  chateau.  In  every 
one,  without  exception,  is  absent  that  tone  of 
brutality  which  we  associate  with  the  notion  of 
Zola's  genius.  All  is  gentle  irony  and  pastoral 
sweetness,  or  else  downright  pathetic  sentiment. 

The  volume  of  Nouveaux  Contes  a  Ninon  closes 
with  a  story  which  is  much  longer  and  consider- 
ably more  important  than  the  rest.  Les  Quatre 
Joiirnees  de  Jean  Gourdon  deserves  to  rank 
among  the  very  best  things  to  which  Zola  has 
signed  his  name.  It  is  a  study  of  four  typical 
days  in  the  life  of  a  Proven9al  peasant  of  the 
better  sort,  told  by  the  man  himself.  In  the  first 
of  these  it  is  spring  :  Jean  Gourdon  is  eighteen 
years  of  age,  and  he  steals  away  from  the  house  of 
his  uncle  Lazare,  a  country  priest,  that  he  may 
meet  his  coy  sweetheart  Babet  by  the  waters  of 
the  broad  Durance,  His  uncle  follows  and  cap- 
tures him,  but  the  threatened  sermon  turns  into  a 
benediction,  the  priestly  malediction  into  an  im- 
passioned song  to  the  blossoming  springtide.  Babet 
and  Jean  receive  the  old  man's  blessing  on  their 
betrothal. 

Next  follows  a  day  in  summer,  five  years  later  ; 
Jean,  as  a  soldier  in  the  Italian  war,  goes  through 
the  horrors  of  a  battle  and  is  wounded,  but  not 
dangerously,  in  the  shoulder.     Just  as  he  marches 


I40  FRENCH    PROFILES 

into  action  he  receives  a  letter  from  Uncle  Lazare 
and  Babet,  full  of  tender  fears  and  tremors ;  he 
reads  it  when  he  recovers  consciousness  after  the 
battle.  Presently  he  creeps  off  to  help  his  ex- 
cellent colonel,  and  they  support  one  another  till 
both  are  carried  off  to  hospital.  This  episode, 
which  has  something  in  common  with  the  Sevas- 
topol of  Tolstoi,  is  exceedingly  ingenious  in  its 
observation  of  the  sentiments  of  a  common  man 
under  fire. 

The  third  part  of  the  story  occurs  fifteen  years 
later.  Jean  and  Babet  have  now  long  been  mar- 
ried, and  Uncle  Lazare,  in  extreme  old  age,  has 
given  up  his  cure,  and  lives  with  them  in  their 
farm  by  the  river.  All  things  have  prospered 
with  them  save  one.  They  are  rich,  healthy, 
devoted  to  one  another,  respected  by  all  their 
neighbours ;  but  there  is  a  single  happiness  lack- 
ing— they  have  no  child.  And  now,  in  the  high 
autumn  splendour — when  the  corn  and  the  grapes 
are  ripe,  and  the  lovely  Durance  winds  like  a 
riband  of  white  satin  through  the  gold  and  purple 
of  the  landscape — this  gift  also  is  to  be  theirs. 
A  little  son  is  born  to  them  in  the  midst  of  the 
vintage  weather,  and  the  old  uncle,  to  whom  life 
has  now  no  further  good  thing  to  offer,  drops 
painlessly  from  life,  shaken  down  like  a  blown  leaf 
by  his  excess  of  joy,  on  the  evening  of  the  birthday 
of  the  child. 

The  optimistic  tone  has  hitherto  been  so  con- 
sistently preserved,  that  we  must  almost  resent  the 
tragedy  of  the  fourth  day.  This  is  eighteen  years 
later,  and  Jean  is  now  an  elderly  man.     His  son 


ZOLA  141 

Jacques  is  in  early  manhood.  In  the  midst  of 
their  felicity,  on  a  winter's  night,  the  Durance 
rises  in  spate,  and  all  are  swept  away.  It  is 
impossible,  in  a  brief  sketch,  to  give  an  impression 
of  the  charm  and  romantic  sweetness  of  this  little 
masterpiece,  a  veritable  hymn  to  the  Ninon  of 
Provence  ;  but  it  raises  many  curious  reflections 
to  consider  that  this  exquisitely  pathetic  pastoral, 
with  all  its  gracious  and  tender  personages,  should 
have  been  written  by  the  master  of  Naturalism, 
the  author  of  Germinal  and  of  Pot-Bouille. 


Ill 

In  1878,  Zola,  who  had  long  been  wishing  for 
a  place  whither  to  escape  from  the  roar  of  Paris, 
bought  a  little  property  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Seine,  between  Poissy  and  Meulan,  where  he  built 
himself  the  house  which  he  inhabited  to  the  last, 
and  which  he  made  so  famous.  Medan,  the  village 
in  which  this  property  is  placed,  is  a  very  quiet 
hamlet  of  less  than  two  hundred  inhabitants,  abso- 
lutely unillustrious,  save  that,  according  to  tradition, 
Charles  the  Bold  was  baptized  in  the  font  of  its 
parish  church.  The  river  lies  before  it,  with  its 
rich  meadows,  its  poplars,  its  willow  groves  ;  a 
delicious  and  somnolent  air  of  peace  hangs  over 
it,  though  so  close  to  Paris.  Thither  the  master's 
particular  friends  and  disciples  soon  began  to 
gather :  that  enthusiastic  Boswell,  Paul  Alexis  ; 
Guy  de  Maupassant,  a  stalwart  oarsman,  in  his 
skiff,  from  Rouen  ;  others,  whose  names  were 
soon  to  come  prominently  forward  in  connection 


142  FRENCH    PROFILES 

with  that  naturalistic  school  of  which  Zola  was  the 
leader. 

It  was  in  1880  that  the  little  hamlet  on  the 
Poissy  Road  awoke  to  find  itself  made  famous  by 
the  publication  of  a  volume  which  marks  an  epoch 
in  French  literature,  and  still  more  in  the  history  of 
the  short  story.  Les  Soirees  de  Me'dan  was  a  mani- 
festo by  the  naturalists,  the  most  definite  and  the 
most  defiant  which  had  up  to  that  time  been  made. 
It  consisted  of  six  short  stories,  several  of  which 
were  of  remarkable  excellence,  and  all  of  which 
awakened  an  amount  of  discussion  almost  unpre- 
cedented. Zola  came  first  with  L Attaque  du 
Moulin,  which  is  rather  a  short  novel  than  a 
genuine  conie.  The  next  story  was  Boule  de  Suif, 
a  veritable  masterpiece  in  a  new  vein,  by  an 
entirely  new  novelist,  a  certain  M.  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant, thirty  years  of  age,  who  had  been  pre- 
sented to  Zola,  with  warm  recommendations,  by 
Gustave  Flaubert.  The  other  contributors  were 
M.  Henri  Ceard,  who  also  had  as  yet  published 
nothing,  a  man  who  seems  to  have  greatly  im- 
pressed all  his  associates,  but  who  has  done  little 
or  nothing  to  justify  their  hopes  ;  M.  Joris  Karel 
Huysmans,  older  than  the  rest,  and  already  some- 
what distinguished  for  picturesque,  malodorous 
novels  ;  M.  Leon  Hennique,  a  youth  from  Guade- 
loupe, who  had  attracted  attention  by  a  very  odd 
and  powerful  novel.  La  De'voue'e,  the  story  of  an 
inventor  who  murders  his  daughter  that  he  may 
employ  her  fortune  on  perfecting  his  machine  ; 
and  finally,  the  faithful  Paul  Alexis,  a  native,  like 
Zola  himself,  of  Aix  in   Provence,  and  full  of  the 


ZOLA  143 

perfervid  extravagance  of  the  South.  The  thread 
on  which  the  whole  book  is  hung  is  the  supposition 
that  these  stories  are  brought  to  M6dan  to  be  read 
of  an  evening  to  Zola,  and  that  he  leads  off  by 
telling  a  tale  of  his  own. 

Nothing  need  be  said  here,  however,  of  the 
works  of  those  disciples  who  placed  themselves 
under  the  flag  of  M6dan,  and  little  of  that  story  in 
which,  with  his  accustomed  bonhomie  of  a  good 
giant,  Zola  accepted  their  comradeship  and  con- 
sented to  march  with  them.  77!^  Attack  on  the 
Mill  is  very  well  known  to  English  readers,  who, 
even  when  they  have  not  met  with  it  in  the  origi- 
nal, have  been  empowered  to  estimate  its  force 
and  truth  as  a  narrative.  Whenever  Zola  writes 
of  war,  he  writes  seriously  and  well.  Like  the 
Julien  of  his  late  reminiscences,  he  has  never  loved 
war  for  its  own  sake.  He  has  little  of  the  mad 
and  pompous  chivalry  of  the  typical  Frenchman 
in  his  nature.  He  sees  war  as  the  disturber,  the 
annihilator;  he  recognises  in  it  mainly  a  destructive, 
stupid,  unintelligible  force,  set  in  motion  by  those 
in  power  for  the  discomfort  of  ordinary  beings,  of 
workers  like  himself.  But  in  the  course  of  three 
European  wars — those  of  his  childhood,  of  his 
youth,  of  his  maturity — he  has  come  to  see 
beneath  the  surface,  and  in  La  Debacle  he  almost 
agrees  with  our  young  Jacobin  poets  of  one  hun- 
dred years  ago,  that  Slaughter  is  God's  daughter. 

In  this  connection,  and  as  a  commentary  on 
The  Attack  on  the  Mill,  I  would  commend  to 
the  earnest  attention  of  readers  the  three  short 
papers    entitled    Trois    Guerres.     Nothing    on     the 


144  FRENCH    PROFILES 

subject  has  been  written  more  picturesque,  nor,  in 
its  simple  way,  more  poignant,  than  this  triple  chain 
of  reminiscences.  Whether  Louis  and  Julien  ex- 
isted under  those  forms,  or  whether  the  episodes 
which  they  illustrate  are  fictitious,  matters  little  or 
nothing.  The  brothers  are  natural  enough,  de- 
lightful enough,  to  belong  to  the  world  of  fiction, 
and  if  their  story  is,  in  the  historical  sense,  true,  it 
is  one  of  those  rare  instances  in  which  fact  is  better 
than  fancy.  The  crisis  under  which  the  timid 
Julien,  having  learned  the  death  of  his  spirited 
martial  brother,  is  not  broken  down,  but  merely 
frozen  into  a  cold  soldierly  passion,  and  spends 
the  remainder  of  the  campaign — he,  the  poet,  the 
nestler  by  the  fireside,  the  timid  club-man — in 
watching  behind  hedges  for  Prussians  to  shoot  or 
stab,  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  and  most 
interesting  that  a  novelist  has  ever  tried  to  describe. 
And  the  light  that  it  throws  on  war  as  a  disturber 
of  the  moral  nature,  as  a  dynamitic  force  explod- 
ing in  the  midst  of  an  elaborately  co-related 
society,  is  unsurpassed,  even  by  the  studies  which 
Count  Lyof  Tolstoi  has  made  in  a  similar  direction. 
It  is  unsurpassed,  because  it  is  essentially  without 
prejudice.  It  admits  the  discomfort,  the  horrible 
vexation  and  shame  of  war,  and  it  tears  aside  the 
conventional  purple  and  tinsel  of  it ;  but  at  the 
same  time  it  admits,  not  without  a  sigh,  that  even 
this  clumsy  artifice  may  be  the  only  one  available 
for  the  cleansing  of  the  people. 


ZOLA  145 

IV 

In  1883,  Zola  published  a  third  volume  of  short 
stories,  under  the  title  of  the  opening  one,  Le 
Capitaine  Burle.  This  collection  contains  the 
delicate  series  of  brief  semi-autobiographical  essays 
called  Aux  Champs,  little  studies  of  past  impression, 
touched  with  a  charm  which  is  almost  kindred  to 
that  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  memories.  With 
this  exception,  the  volume  consists  of  four  short 
stories,  and  of  a  set  of  little  death-bed  anecdotes, 
called  Comment  on  Meiirt.  This  latter  is  hardly  in 
the  writer's  best  style,  and  suffers  by  suggesting  the 
immeasurably  finer  and  deeper  studies  of  the  same 
kind  which  the  genius  of  Tolstoi  has  elaborated. 
Of  these  little  sketches  of  death,  one  alone,  that 
of  Madame  Rousseau,  the  stationer's  wife,  is  quite 
of  the  best  class.  This  is  an  excellent  episode 
from  the  sort  of  Parisian  life  which  Zola  under- 
stands best,  the  lower  middle  class,  the  small  and 
active  shopkeeper,  who  just  contrives  to  be  re- 
spectable and  no  more.  The  others  seem  to  be 
invented  rather  than  observed. 

The  four  stories  which  make  up  the  bulk  of  this 
book  are  almost  typical  examples  of  Zola's  mature 
style.  They  are  worked  out  with  extreme  care, 
they  display  in  every  turn  the  skill  of  the  practised 
narrator,  they  are  solid  and  yet  buoyant  in  style, 
and  the  construction  of  each  may  be  said  to  be 
faultless.  It  is  faultless  to  a  fault  ;  in  other  words, 
the  error  of  the  author  is  to  be  mechanically 
and  inevitably  correct.  It  is  difficult  to  define 
wherein  the  over-elaboration  shows  itself,  but  in 

K 


146  FRENCH    PROFILES 

every  case  the  close  of  the  story  leaves  us  sceptical 
and  cold.  The  denouement  is  too  brilliant  and  con- 
clusive, the  threads  are  drawn  together  with  too 
much  evidence  of  preoccupation.  The  impression 
is  not  so  much  of  a  true  tale  told  as  of  an  extra- 
ordinary situation  frigidly  written  up  to  and 
accounted  for.  In  each  case  a  certain  social 
condition  is  described  at  the  beginning,  and  a 
totally  opposite  condition  is  discovered  at  the  end 
of  the  story.  We  are  tempted  to  believe  that  the 
author  determined  to  do  this,  to  turn  the  whole 
box  of  bricks  absolutely  topsy-turvy.  This  dis- 
regard of  the  soft  and  supple  contours  of  nature, 
this  rugged  air  of  molten  metal,  takes  away  from 
the  pleasure  we  should  otherwise  legitimately 
receive  from  the  exhibition  of  so  much  fancy, 
so  much  knowledge,  so  many  proofs  of  obser- 
vation. 

The  story  which  gives  its  name  to  the  book, 
Le  Capiiaine  Burle,  is  perhaps  the  best,  because 
it  has  least  of  this  air  of  artifice.  In  a  military 
county  town,  a  captain,  who  lives  with  his  anxious 
mother  and  his  little  pallid,  motherless  son,  sinks 
into  vicious  excesses,  and  pilfers  from  the  regiment 
to  pay  for  his  vices.  It  is  a  great  object  with  the 
excellent  major,  who  discovers  this  condition,  to 
save  his  friend  the  captain  in  some  way  which 
will  prevent  an  open  scandal,  and  leave  the  child 
free  for  ultimate  success  in  the  army.  After  try- 
ing every  method,  and  discovering  that  the  moral 
nature  of  the  captain  is  altogether  too  soft  and  too 
far  sunken  to  be  redeemed,  as  the  inevitable  hour 
of  publicity  approaches,  the  major  insults  his  friend 


ZOLA  147 

in  a  caf6,  so  as  to  give  him  an  opportunity  of  fight- 
ing a  duel  and  dying  honourably.  This  is  done, 
and  the  scandal  is  evaded,  without,  however,  any 
good  being  thereby  secured  to  the  family,  for  the 
little  boy  dies  of  weakness  and  his  grandmother 
starves.  Still,  the  name  of  Burle  has  not  been 
dragged  through  the  mud. 

Zola  has  rarely  displayed  the  quality  of  humour, 
but  it  is  present  in  the  story  called  La  FUe  a 
Coqueville.  Coqueville  is  the  name  given  to  a 
very  remote  Norman  fishing-village,  set  in  a  gorge 
of  rocks,  and  almost  inaccessible  except  from  the 
sea.  Here  a  sturdy  population  of  some  hundred 
and  eighty  souls,  all  sprung  from  one  or  other  of 
two  rival  families,  live  in  the  condition  of  a  tiny 
Verona,  torn  between  contending  interests.  A 
ship  laden  with  liqueurs  is  wrecked  on  the  rocks 
outside,  and  one  precious  cask  after  another  comes 
riding  into  Coqueville  over  the  breakers.  The 
villagers,  to  whom  brandy  itself  has  hitherto  been 
the  rarest  of  luxuries,  spend  a  glorious  week  of  per- 
fumed inebriety,  sucking  splinters  that  drip  with 
b^n^dictine,  catching  noyau  in  iron  cups,  and 
supping  up  curagao  from  the  bottom  of  a  boat. 
Upon  this  happy  shore  chartreuse  flows  like  cider, 
and  trappistine  is  drunk  out  of  a  mug.  The  rarest 
drinks  of  the  world — Chios  mastic  and  Servian 
sliwowitz,  Jamaica  rum  and  arrack,  ere  me  de 
moka  and  raki  drip  among  the  mackerel  nets 
and  deluge  the  seaweed.  In  the  presence  of  this 
extraordinary  and  fantastic  bacchanal  all  the  dis- 
putes of  the  rival  families  are  forgotten,  class 
prejudices    are    drowned,    and    the    mayor's    rich 


148  FRENCH    PROFILES 

daughter  marries  the  poorest  of  the  fisher-sons 
of  the  enemy's  camp.  It  is  very  amusingly  and 
very  picturesquely  told,  but  spoiled  a  little  by 
Zola's  pet  sin — the  overcrowding  of  details,  the 
theatrical  completeness  and  orchestral  big-drum 
of  the  final  scene.  Too  many  barrels  of  liqueur 
come  in,  the  village  becomes  too  universally 
drunk,  the  scene  at  last  becomes  too  Lydian  for 
credence. 

In  the  two  remaining  stories  of  this  collection 
-—Pour  une  Nuit  d' Amour  and  L'Inondation — 
the  fault  of  mechanical  construction  is  still 
more  plainly  obvious.  Each  of  these  narratives 
begins  with  a  carefully  accentuated  picture  of  a 
serene  life :  in  the  first  instance,  that  of  a  timid 
lad  sequestered  in  a  country  town ;  in  the  second, 
that  of  a  prosperous  farmer,  surrounded  by  his 
family  and  enjoying  all  the  delights  of  material 
and  moral  success.  In  each  case  this  serenity  is 
but  the  prelude  to  events  of  the  most  appalling 
tragedy — a  tragedy  which  does  not  merely  strike 
or  wound,  but  positively  annihilates.  The  story 
called  L' Inondatiofif  which  describes  the  results 
of  a  bore  on  the  Garonne,  would  be  as  pathetic 
as  it  is  enthralling,  exciting,  and  effective,  if  the 
destruction  were  not  so  absolutely  complete,  if  the 
persons  so  carefully  enumerated  at  the  opening  of 
the  piece  were  not  all  of  them  sacrificed,  and,  as 
in  the  once  popular  song  called  "An  'Orrible  Tale," 
each  by  some  different  death  of  peculiar  ingenuity. 
As  to  Pour  une  Nuit  d'Amour,  it  is  not  needful 
to  do  more  than  say  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
repulsive  productions  ever  published  by  its  author, 


ZOLA  149 

and  a  vivid  exception  to  the  general   innocuous 
character  of  his  short  stories. 

No  little  interest,  to  the  practical  student  of 
literature,  attaches  to  the  fact  that  in  L'lnonda- 
tion  Zola  is  really  re-writing,  in  a  more  elaborate 
form,  the  fourth  section  of  his  Jean  Gourdon. 
Here,  as  there,  a  farmer  who  has  lived  in  the 
greatest  prosperity,  close  to  a  great  river,  is 
stripped  of  everything — of  his  house,  his  wealth, 
and  his  family — by  a  sudden  rising  of  the  waters. 
It  is  unusual  for  an  author  thus  to  re-edit  a  work, 
or  tell  the  same  tale  a  second  time  at  fuller  length, 
but  the  sequences  of  incidents  will  be  found  to  be 
closely  identical,  although  the  later  is  by  far  the 
larger  and  the  more  populous  story.  It  is  not 
uninteresting  to  the  technical  student  to  compare 
the  two  pieces,  the  composition  of  which  was 
separated  by  about  ten  years. 


Finally,  in  1884,  Zola  published  a  fourth  col- 
lection, named,  after  the  first  of  the  series,  Nats 
Micoulin.  This  volume  contained  in  all  six  stories, 
each  of  considerable  extent.  I  do  not  propose 
to  dwell  at  any  length  on  the  contents  of  this 
book,  partly  because  they  belong  to  the  finished 
period  of  naturalism,  and  seem  more  like  castaway 
fragments  of  the  Rougon-Macquart  epos  than  like 
independent  creations,,  but  also  because  they  clash 
with  the  picture  I  have  sought  to  draw  of  an 
optimistic  and  romantic  Zola  returning  from  time 
to  time  to  the  short  story  as  a  shelter  from  his 


I50  FRENCH    PROFILES 

theories.  Of  these  tales,  one  or  two  are  trifling 
and  passably  insipid  ;  the  Parisian  sketches  called 
Nantas  and  Madame  Neigon  have  little  to  be  said 
in  favour  of  their  existence.  Here  Zola  seems 
desirous  to  prove  to  us  that  he  could  write  as 
good  Octave  Feuillet,  if  he  chose,  as  the  author  of 
Monsieur  de  Cantors  himself.  In  Les  Coquillages  de 
M.  Chabre,  which  I  confess  I  read  when  it  first 
appeared,  and  have  now  re-read  with  amusement, 
we  see  the  heavy  Zola  endeavouring  to  sport  as 
gracefully  as  M.  de  Maupassant,  and  in  the  same 
style.  The  impression  of  buoyant  Atlantic  seas 
and  hollow  caverns  is  well  rendered  in  this  most 
unedifying  story.  Na'is  Micoulin,  which  gives  its 
name  to  the  book,  is  a  disagreeable  tale  of  seduc- 
tion and  revenge  in  Provence,  narrated  with  the 
usual  ponderous  conscientiousness.  In  each  of 
the  last  mentioned  the  background  of  landscape 
is  so  vivid  that  we  half  forgive  the  faults  of  the 
narrative. 

The  two  remaining  stories  in  the  book  are 
more  remarkable,  and  one  of  them,  at  least,  is  of 
positive  value.  It  is  curious  that  in  La  Mori 
d' Olivier  Be'cailles  and  Jacques  Damour  Zola  should 
in  the  same  volume  present  versions  of  the  Enoch 
Arden  story,  the  now  familiar  episode  of  the  man 
who  is  supposed  to  be  dead,  and  comes  back  to 
find  his  wife  re-married.  Olivier  B^caille  is  a 
poor  clerk,  lately  arrived  in  Paris  with  his  wife  ; 
he  is  in  wretched  health, .  and  has  always  been 
subject  to  cataleptic  seizures.  In  one  of  these  he 
falls  into  a  state  of  syncope  so  prolonged  that 
they  believe  him  to  be  dead,  and  bury  him.      He 


ZOLA  151 

manages  to  break  out  of  his  coffin  in  the  cemetery, 
and  is  picked  up  fainting  by  a  philanthropic 
doctor.  He  has  a  long  illness,  at  the  end  of 
which  he  cannot  discover  what  has  become  of  his 
wife.  After  a  long  search,  he  finds  that  she  has 
married  a  very  excellent  young  fellow,  a  neigh- 
bour ;  and  in  the  face  of  her  happiness,  Olivier 
B6caille  has  not  the  courage  to  disturb  her.  Like 
Tennyson's  "strong,  heroic  soul,"  he  passes  out 
into  the  silence  and  the  darkness. 

The  exceedingly  powerful  story  called  Jacques 
Damour  treats  the  same  idea,  but  with  far  greater 
mastery,  and  in  a  less  conventional  manner. 
Jacques  Damour  is  a  Parisian  artisan,  who  be- 
comes demoralised  during  the  siege,  and  joins  the 
Commune.  He  is  captured  by  the  Versailles 
army,  and  sentenced  to  penal  servitude  in  New 
Caledonia,  leaving  a  wife  and  a  little  girl  behind 
him  in  Paris.  After  some  years,  in  company  with 
two  or  three  other  convicts,  he  makes  an  attempt 
to  escape.  He,  in  fact,  succeeds  in  escaping, 
with  one  companion,  the  rest  being  drowned 
before  they  get  out  of  the  colony.  One  of  the 
dead  men  being  mistaken  for  him,  Jacques 
Damour  is  reported  home  deceased.  When,  after 
credible  adventures,  and  at  the  declaration  of  the 
amnesty,  he  returns  to  Paris,  his  wife  and  daughter 
have  disappeared.  At  length  he  finds  the  former 
married  to  a  prosperous  butcher  in  the  Batignolles, 
and  he  summons  up  courage,  egged  on  by  a 
rascally  friend,  to  go  to  the  shop  in  midday  and 
claim  his  lawful  wife.  The  successive  scenes  in 
the  shop,  and  the  final  one,  in  which  the  ruddy 


152  FRENCH    PROFILES 

butcher,  sure  of  his  advantage  over  this  squalid 
and  prematurely  wasted  ex-convict,  bids  F^licie 
take  her  choice,  are  superb.  Zola  has  done 
nothing  more  forcible  or  life-like.  The  poor  old 
Damour  retires,  but  he  still  has  a  daughter  to 
discover.  The  finale  of  the  tale  is  excessively 
unfitted  for  the  young  person,  and  no  serious 
critic  could  do  otherwise  than  blame  it.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  I  am  hardened  enough  to  admit 
that  I  think  it  very  true  to  life  and  not  a  little 
humorous,  which,  I  hope,  is  not  equivalent  to  a 
moral  commendation.  We  may,  if  we  like,  wish 
that  Zola  had  never  written  Jacques  Damour,  but 
nothing  can  prevent  it  from  being  a  superbly 
constructed  and  supported  piece  of  narrative, 
marred  by  unusually  few  of  the  mechanical  faults 
of  his  later  work. 

The  consideration  of  the  optimistic  and  some- 
times even  sentimental  short  stories  of  Zola  helps 
to  reveal  to  a  candid  reader  the  undercurrent  of 
pity  which  exists  even  in  the  most  "  naturalistic  " 
of  his  romances.  It  cannot  be  too  often  insisted 
upon  that,  although  he  tried  to  write  books  as 
scientific  as  anything  by  Pasteur  or  Claude  Bernard, 
he  simply  could  not  do  it.  His  innate  romanticism 
would  break  through,  and,  for  all  his  efforts,  it 
made  itself  apparent  even  when  he  strove  with  the 
greatest  violence  to  conceal  it.  In  his  contes  he 
does  not  try  to  fight  against  his  native  idealism, 
and  they  are,  in  consequence,  perhaps  the  most 
genuinely  characteristic  productions  of  his  pen 
which  exist. 

1892. 


FERDINAND   FABRE 

On  the  nth  of  February  1898,  carried  off  by 
a  brief  attack  of  pneumonia,  one  of  the  most 
original  of  the  contemporary  writers  of  France 
passed  away  almost  unobserved.  All  his  life 
through,  the  actions  of  Ferdinand  Fabre  were 
inopportune,  and  certainly  so  ambitious  an  author 
should  not  have  died  in  the  very  central  heat  of 
the  Zola  trial.  He  was  just  going  to  be  elected, 
moreover,  into  the  French  Academy.  After 
several  misunderstandings  and  two  rebuffs,  he 
was  safe  at  last.  He  was  standing  for  the  chair 
of  Meilhac,  and  "  sur  de  son  affaire."  For  a  very 
long  while  the  Academy  had  looked  askance  at 
Fabre,  in  spite  of  his  genius  and  the  purity  of  his 
books.  His  attitude  seemed  too  much  like  that 
of  an  unfrocked  priest  ;  he  dealt  with  the  world 
of  religion  too  intimately  for  one  who  stood  quite 
outside.  Years  ago.  Cardinal  Perraud  is  reported 
to  have  said,  "  I  may  go  as  far  as  Loti — but  as 
far  as  Fabre,  never ! "  Yet  every  one  gave  way 
at  last  to  the  gentle  charm  of  the  C^venol  novelist. 
Taine  and  Renan  had  been  his  supporters ;  a 
later  generation,  MM.  Hal6vy,  Claretie,  and  Jules 
Lemaitre  in  particular,  were  now  his  ardent 
friends.  The  Cardinals  were  appeased,  and  the 
author  of  L'Abbe  Tigrane  was  to  be  an  Immortal 
at  last.     Ferdinand  Fabre  would  not  have  been 


154  FRENCH    PROFILES 

himself  if  he  had  not  chosen  that  moment  for  the 
date  of  his  decease.  All  his  life  through  he  was 
isolated,  a  little  awkward,  not  in  the  central 
stream  ;  but  for  all  that  his  was  a  talent  so 
marked  and  so  individual  that  it  came  scarcely 
short  of  genius.  Taine  said  long  ago  that  one 
man,  and  one  man  only,  had  in  these  recent  years 
understood  the  soul  of  the  average  French  priest, 
and  that  one  man  was  Ferdinand  Fabre.  He 
cared  little  for  humanity  unless  it  wore  a  cassock, 
but,  if  it  did,  his  study  of  its  peculiarities  was 
absolutely  untiring.  His  books  are  galleries  of 
the  portraits  of  priests,  and  he  is  to  French  fiction 
what  Zurbaran  is  to  Spanish  painting. 

I 

Ferdinand  Fabre  was  born  in  1830  at  B^darieux, 
in  the  H^rault,  that  department  which  lies  between 
the  southern  masses  of  the  C^vennes  Mountains 
and  the  lagoons  of  the  Mediterranean.  This  is 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  districts  in  France  ;  just 
above  Bddarieux,  the  great  moors  or  garrigues 
begin  to  rise,  and  brilliant  little  rivers,  the  Orb  and 
its  tributaries,  wind  and  dash  between  woodland 
and  meadow,  hurrying  to  the  hot  plains  and  the 
fiery  Gulf  of  Lyons.  But,  up  there  in  the  Espin- 
ouze,  all  is  crystal-fresh  and  dewy-cool,  a  mild 
mountain-country  positively  starred  with  churches, 
since  if  this  is  one  of  the  poorest  it  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  pious  parts  of  France.  This  zone  of 
broken  moorland  along  the  north-western  edge  of 
the  H^rault  is  Fabre's  province  ;  it  belongs  to  him 


FERDINAND    FABRE  155 

as  the  Berry  belongs  to  George  Sand  or  Dorset- 
shire to  Mr.  Hardy.  He  is  its  discoverer,  its 
panegyrist,  its  satirist.  It  was  as  little  known  to 
Frenchmen,  when  he  began  to  write,  as  Pata- 
gonia ;  and  in  volume  after  volume  he  has  made 
them  familiar  with  its  scenery  and  its  population. 
For  most  French  readers  to-day,  the  Lower 
C^vennes  are  what  Ferdinand  Fabre  has  chosen  to 
represent  them. 

When  the  boy  was  born,  his  father  was  a  suc- 
cessful local  architect,  who  had  taken  advantage 
of  a  tide  of  prosperity  which,  on  the  revival  of  the 
cloth-trade,  was  sweeping  into  B^darieux,  to  half- 
rebuild  the  town.  But  the  elder  Fabre  was 
tempted  by  his  success  to  enter  into  speculations 
which  were  unlucky  ;  and,  in  particular,  a  certain 
too  ambitious  high-road  (often  to  be  mentioned  in 
his  son's  novels),  between  Agde  on  the  sea  and 
Castres  on  the  farther  side  of  the  mountains, 
completed  his  ruin.  In  1842,  when  the  boy  was 
twelve,  the  family  were  on  the  brink  of  bankruptcy. 
His  uncle,  the  Abb6  Fulcran  Fabre,  priest  of  the 
neighbouring  parish  of  Camplong,  offered  to  take 
Ferdinand  to  himself  for  awhile.  In  Ma  Vocation 
the  novelist  has  given  an  enchanting  picture  of 
how  his  uncle  fetched  him  on  foot,  and  led  him, 
without  a  word,  through  almond  plantations 
thronged  with  thrushes  and  over  brawling  water- 
courses, till  they  reached  an  open  little  wood  in 
sight  of  the  moors,  where  Ferdinand  was  allowed 
to  feast  upon  mulberries,  while  Uncle  Fulcran 
touched,  for  the  first  time,  on  the  delicate  question 
whether  his  little  garrulous  nephew  had  or  had  not 


156  FRENCH    PROFILES 

a  call  to  the  priesthood.  Uncle  Fulcran  Fabre  is 
a  type  which  recurs  in  every  novel  that  Ferdinand 
afterwards  wrote.  Sometimes,  as  in  Mon  Oncle 
Ce'lestin,  he  has  practically  the  whole  book  to  him- 
self ;  more  often  he  is  a  secondary  character. 
But  he  was  a  perpetual  model  to  his  nephew,  and 
whenever  a  naif,  devoted  country  priest  or  an 
eccentric  and  holy  professor  of  ecclesiastical  his- 
tory was  needed  for  foreground  or  background,  the 
memory  of  Uncle  Fulcran  was  always  ready. 

The  "  vocation "  takes  a  great  place  in  all  the 
psychological  struggles  of  Ferdinand  Fabre's 
heroes.  It  offers,  indeed,  the  difficulty  which 
must  inevitably  rise  in  the  breast  of  every  generous 
and  religious  youth  who  feels  drawn  to  adopt  the 
service  of  the  Catholic  Church.  How  is  he  to 
know  whether  this  enthusiasm  which  rises  in  his 
soul,  this  rapture,  this  devotion,  is  the  veritable 
and  enduring  fragrance  of  Lebanon,  the  all-needful 
odor  suavitatis  ?  This  doubt  long  harassed  the 
breast  of  Ferdinand  Fabre  himself.  In  that  poor 
country  of  the  C^vennes,  to  have  the  care  of  a 
parish,  to  be  sheltered  by  a  presbytere — by  a  par- 
sonage or  manse,  as  we  should  say — is  to  have 
settled  very  comfortably  the  problem  of  subsist- 
ence. The  manse  will  shelter  a  mother,  at  need  a 
sister  or  an  aged  father  ;  it  reconstructs  a  home 
for  such  a  shattered  family  as  the  Fabres  were 
now.  Great,  though  unconscious,  pressure  was 
therefore  put  upon  the  lad  to  make  inevitable  his 
"  vocation."  He  was  sent  to  the  Little  Seminary 
at  St.  Pons  de  Thomi^res,  where  he  was  educated 
under  M.  I'Abb^  Dubreuil,  a  man  whose  ambitions 


FERDINAND    FABRE  157 

were  at  once  lettered  and  ecclesiastical,  and  who, 
although  Director  of  the  famous  Academic  des 
Jeux  Floraux,  eventually  rose  to  be  Archbishop  of 
Avignon. 

During  this  time,  at  the  urgent  request  of  his 
uncle  at  Camplong,  Ferdinand  Fabre  kept  a  daily 
journal.  It  was  started  in  the  hope  that  cultivat- 
ing the  expression  of  pious  sentiments  might  make 
their  ebullition  spontaneous,  but  the  boy  soon 
began  to  jot  down,  instead  of  pious  ejaculations, 
all  the  external  things  he  noticed  :  the  birds  in  the 
copses,  the  talk  of  the  neighbours,  even  at  last  the 
oddities  and  the  disputes  of  the  excellent  clergy- 
men his  schoolmasters.  When  the  Abb6  Fulcran 
died  in  1871,  his  papers  were  burned  and  most  of 
Ferdinand's  journals  with  them  ;  but  the  latest  and 
therefore  most  valuable  cahier  survived,  and  is  the 
source  from  which  he  extracted  that  absorbingly 
interesting  fragment  of  autobiography.  Ma  Vocation. 
This  shows  us  why,  in  spite  of  all  the  pressure  of 
his  people,  and  in  spite  of  the  entreaties  of  his 
amiable  professors  at  the  Great  Seminary  of  Mont- 
pellier,  the  natural  man  was  too  strong  in 
Ferdinand  Fabre  to  permit  him  to  take  the  final 
vows.  In  his  nineteenth  year,  on  the  night  of  the 
23rd  of  June  1848,  after  an  agony  of  prayer,  he 
had  a  vision  in  his  cell.  A  great  light  filled  the 
room  ;  he  saw  heaven  opened,  and  the  Son  of 
God  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father.  He  ap- 
proached in  worship,  but  a  wind  howled  him  out 
of  heaven,  and  a  sovereign  voice  cried,  "  It  is  not 
the  will  of  God  that  thou  shouldst  be  a  priest." 
He  rose  up,  calm  though  broken-hearted  ;  as  soon 


158  FRENCH    PROFILES 

as  morning  broke,  without  hesitation  he  wrote  his 
decision  to  his  family,  and  of  the  "  vocation  "  of 
Ferdinand  Fabre  there  was  an  end. 

There  could  be  no  question  of  the  sincerity  of 
a  Hfe  so  begun,  although  from  the  very  first  there 
may  be  traced  in  it  an  element  of  incompatibility, 
of  gaucherte.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  clerical 
novels  of  Fabre,  they  are  at  least  built  out  of  a 
loving  experience.  And,  in  1889,  replying  to 
some  accuser,  he  employed  words  which  must  be 
quoted  here,  for  they  are  essential  to  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  man  and  his  work.  They  were 
addressed  to  his  wife,  diledce  uxori,  and  they  take  a 
double  pathos  from  this  circumstance.  They  are 
the  words  of  the  man  who  had  laid  his  hand  to 
the  plough,  and  had  turned  away  because  life  was 
too  sweet : — 

"  Je  ne  suis  pas  alle  a  I'Eglise  de  propos  d61ib6r6 
pour  la  peindre  et  pour  la  juger,  encore  moins 
pour  faire  d'elle  metier  et  marchandise  ;  I'Eglise 
est  venue  a  moi,  s'est  impos6e  a  moi  par  la  force 
d'une  longue  fr^quentation,  par  les  Amotions 
poignantes  de  ma  jeunesse,  par  un  gout  tenace  de 
mon  esprit,  ouvert  de  bonne  heure  a  elle,  a  elle 
seule,  et  j'ai  6crit  tout  de  long  de  I'aune,  naive- 
ment.  .  .  .  Je  demeurais  confine  dans  mon  coin 
6troit,  dans  mon  'diocese,'  comme  aurait  dit 
Sainte-Beuve.  .  .  .  De  la  une  s6rie  de  livres  sur 
les  desservants,  les  cur^s,  les  chanoines,  les 
6v^ques." 

But  if  the  Church  was  to  be  his  theme  and  his 
obsession,  there  was  something  else  in  the  blood 
of  Ferdinand  Fabre.     There  was  the  balsam- laden 


FERDINAND    FABRE  159 

atmosphere  of  the  great  moorlands  of  the 
Cevennes.  At  first  it  seemed  as  though  he  were 
to  be  torn  away  from  this  natural  perfume  no  less 
than  from  the  odour  of  incense.  He  was  sent, 
after  attemping  the  study  of  medicine  at  Mont- 
pellier,  to  Paris,  where  he  was  articled  as  clerk  to 
a  lawyer.  The  oppression  of  an  office  was  intoler- 
able to  him,  and  he  broke  away,  trying,  as  so 
many  thousands  do,  to  make  a  living  by  journalism, 
by  the  untrained  and  unaccomplished  pen.  In 
1853  he  published  the  inevitable  volume  of  verses, 
Les  Feuilles  de  Lierre.  It  seemed  at  first  as  if  these 
neglected  ivy-leaves  would  cover  the  poor  lad's 
coffin,  for,  under  poverty  and  privation,  his  health 
completely  broke  down.  He  managed  to  creep  back 
to  B^darieux,  and  in  the  air  of  the  moors  he  soon 
recovered.  But  how  he  occupied  himself  during 
the  next  eight  or  ten  years  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  recorded.  His  life  was  probably  a  very  idle 
one  ;  with  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  cup  of  wine 
beneath  the  bough,  youth  passes  merrily  and 
cheaply  in  that  delicious  country  of  the  Herault. 

In  the  sixties  he  reappeared  in  Paris,  and  at 
the  age  of  thirty-two,  in  1862,  he  brought  out  his 
first  novel,  Les  Courbezon  :  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Cle'ri- 
cale.  George  Eliot's  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  had 
appeared  a  few  years  earlier  ;  the  new  French 
novelist  resembled  her  less  than  he  did  Anthony 
Trollope,  to  whom,  with  considerable  clairvoy- 
ance, M.  Am^d^e  Pichot  immediately  compared 
him.  In  spite  of  the  limited  interests  involved 
and  the  rural  crudity  of  the  scene — the  book  was 
all    about    the    life    of    country    priests    in    the 


i6o  FRENCH    PROFILES 

C^vennes — Les  Courbezon  achieved  an  instant  suc- 
cess. It  was  crowned  by  the  French  Academy, 
it  was  praised  by  George  Sand,  it  was  carefully 
reviewed  by  Sainte-Beuve,  who  called  the  author 
"  the  strongest  of  the  disciples  of  Balzac." 
Ferdinand  Fabre  had  begun  his  career,  and  was 
from  this  time  forth  a  steady  and  sturdy  con- 
structor of  prose  fiction.  About  twenty  volumes 
bear  his  name  on  their  title-pages.  In  1883  he 
succeeded  Jules  Sandeau  as  curator  of  the  Mazarin 
Library,  and  in  that  capacity  inhabited  a  pleasant 
suite  of  rooms  in  the  Institute,  where  he  died. 
There  are  no  other  mile-stones  in  the  placid  road- 
way of  his  life  except  the  dates  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  his  books:  Le  Chevrier,  1867;  L Abbe 
Tigrane,  1873  ;  Barnabe,  1875  ;  Mon  Oncle  Celestin, 
1881  ;  Lucifer,  1884  ;  and  UAbbe  Roitelety  1890. 
At  the  time  of  his  death,  I  understand,  he  was  at 
work  on  a  novel  called  Le  Bercail,  of  which  only  a 
fragment  was  completed.  Few  visitors  to  Paris 
saw  him  ;  he  loved  solitude  and  was  shy.  But  he 
is  described  as  very  genial  and  smiling,  eager  to 
please,  with  a  certain  prelatical  unction  of  manner 
recalling  the  Seminary  after  half  a  century  of 
separation. 

II 

The  novels  of  Ferdinand  Fabre  have  one  signal 
merit :  they  are  entirely  unlike  those  of  any  other 
writer  ;  but  they  have  one  equally  signal  defect — 
they  are  terribly  like  one  another.  Those  who 
read  a  book  of  his  for  the  first  time  are  usually 


FERDINAND    FABRE  i6i 

highly  delighted,  but  they  make  a  mistake  if  they 
immediately  read  another.  Criticism,  dealing 
broadly  with  Ferdinand  Fabre,  and  anxious  to 
insist  on  the  recognition  of  his  great  merits,  is  wise 
if  it  concedes  at  once  the  fact  of  his  monotony.  Cer- 
tain things  and  people — most  of  them  to  be  found 
within  five  miles  of  his  native  town — interested 
him,  and  he  produced  fresh  combinations  of  these. 
Without  ever  entirely  repeating  himself,  he  pro- 
duced, especially  in  his  later  writings,  an  unfor- 
tunate impression  of  having  told  us  all  that  before. 
Nor  was  he  merely  monotonous  ;  he  was  unequal. 
Some  of  his  stories  were  much  better  constructed 
and  even  better  than  others.  It  is  therefore  need- 
less, and  would  be  wearisome,  to  go  through  the 
list  of  his  twenty  books  here.  I  shall  merely 
endeavour  to  present  to  English  readers,  who  are 
certainly  not  duly  cognisant  of  a  very  charming 
and  sympathetic  novelist,  those  books  of  Fabre's 
which,  I  believe,  will  most  thoroughly  reward 
attention. 

By  universal  consent  the  best  of  all  Fabre's 
novels  is  L! Abbe  Tigrane,  Candidal  a  la  Papaute. 
It  is,  in  all  the  more  solid  and  durable  qualities 
of  composition,  unquestionably  among  the  best 
European  novels  of  the  last  thirty  years.  It  is  as 
interesting  to-day  as  it  was  when  it  first  appeared. 
I  read  it  then  with  rapture,  I  have  just  laid  it  down 
again  with  undiminished  admiration.  It  is  so 
excellently  balanced  and  moulded  that  it  positively 
does  its  author  an  injury,  for  the  reader  cannot 
resist  asking  why,  since  L Abbe  Tigrane  is  so 
brilliantly  constructed,    are  the    other    novels    of 

L 


i62  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Fabre,  with  all  their  agreeable  qualities,  so  mani- 
festly inferior  to  it  ?  And  to  this  question  there 
is  no  reply,  except  to  say  that  on  one  solitary 
occasion  the  author  of  very  pleasant,  characteristic 
and  notable  books,  which  were  not  quite  master- 
pieces, shot  up  in  the  air  and  became  a  writer 
almost  of  the  first  class.  I  hardly  know  whether 
it  is  worth  while  to  observe  that  the  scene  of 
L'Abbe  Tigrane,  although  analogous  to  that  which 
Fabre  elsewhere  portrayed,  was  not  identical  with 
it,  and  perhaps  this  slight  detachment  from  his 
beloved  C^vennes  gave  the  novelist  a  seeming 
touch  of  freedom. 

The  historical  conditions  which  give  poignancy 
of  interest  to  the  ecclesiastical  novels  of  Ferdinand 
Fabre  are  the  re-assertion  in  France  of  the 
monastic  orders  proscribed  by  the  Revolution,  and 
the  opposition  offered  to  them  by  the  parochial 
clergy.  The  battle  which  rages  in  these  stormy 
books  is  that  between  Roman  and  Galilean  ambi- 
tion. The  names  of  Lacordaire  and  Lamennais 
are  scarcely  mentioned  in  the  pages  of  Fabre,^ 
but  the  study  of  their  Uves  forms  an  excellent  pre- 
paration for  the  enjoyment  of  stories  like  L'Abbe 
Tigrane  and  Lucifer.  The  events  which  thrilled 
the  Church  of  France  about  the  year  1840,  the 
subjection  of  the  prelates  to  Roman  authority, 
the  hostility  of  the  Government,  the  resistance 
here  and  there  of  an  ambitious  and  headstrong 
Gallican — all  this  must  in  some  measure  be  recol- 

^  I  should  except  the  curious  anecdote  of  the  asceticism  of  Lamennais 
which  is  told  by  the  arch-priest  Rupert  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of 
Lucifer. 


FERDINAND    FABRE  163 

lected  to  make  the  intrinsic  purpose  of  Fabre's 
novels,  which  Taine  had  qualified  as  indispensable 
to  the  historian  of  modern  France,  intelligible. 
If  we  recollect  Archbishop  de  Qu61en  and  his  pro- 
tection of  the  Peregrine  Brethren  ;  if  we  think 
of  Lacordaire  (on  the  12th  of  February  1841) 
mounting  the  pulpit  of  Notre-Dame  in  the  for- 
bidden white  habit  of  St.  Dominic ;  if  we  recall 
the  turmoil  which  preceded  the  arrival  of  Mon- 
seigneur  Affre  at  Paris,  we  shall  find  ourselves 
prepared  by  historic  experience  for  the  curious 
ambitions  and  excitements  which  animate  the 
clerical  novels  of  Fabre. 

The  devout  little  city  of  Lormieres,  where  the 
scene  of  L'Abbe  Tigrane  is  laid,  is  a  sort  of  clerical 
ante-chamber  to  Paradise.  It  stands  in  a  wild 
defile  of  the  Eastern  Pyrenees,  somewhere  be- 
tween Toulouse  and  Perpignan  ;  it  is  not  the 
capital  of  a  department,  but  a  little  stronghold  of 
ancient  religion,  left  untouched  in  its  poverty  and 
its  devotion,  overlooked  in  the  general  redistribu- 
tion of  dioceses.  The  Abb6  Rufin  Capdepont, 
about  the  year  1866,  finds  himself  Vicar-General 
of  its  Cathedral  Church  of  St.  Iren^e ;  he  is  a 
fierce,  domineering  man,  some  fifty  years  of  age, 
devoured  by  ambition  and  eating  his  heart  out  in 
this  forgotten  corner  of  Christendom.  He  is  by 
conviction,  but  still  more  by  temper,  a  Gallican  of 
the  Galileans,  and  his  misery  is  to  see  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Concordat  gradually  being  swept 
away  by  the  tide  of  the  Orders  setting  in  from 
Rome.  The  present  bishop  of  Lormieres,  M.  de 
Roquebrun,  is  a    charming    and   courtly   person, 


i64  FRENCH    PROFILES 

but  he  is  under  the  thumb  of  the  Regulars,  and 
gives  all  the  offices  which  fall  vacant  to  Domini- 
cans or  Lazarists.  He  is  twenty  years  older  than 
Rufin  Capdepont,  who  has  determined  to  succeed 
him,  but  whom  every  year  of  delay  embitters  and 
disheartens. 

Rufin  Capdepont  is  built  in  the  mould  of  the 
unscrupulous  conquerors  of  life.  The  son  of  a 
peasant  of  the  Pyrenees  and  of  a  Basque-Spanish 
mother,  he  is  a  creature  like  a  tiger,  all  sinuosity 
and  sleekness  when  things  go  well,  but  ready  in  a 
moment  to  show  claws  and  fangs  on  the  slightest 
opposition,  and  to  stir  with  a  roar  that  cows  the 
forest.  His  rude  violence,  his  Gallicanism,  the 
hatred  he  inspires,  the  absence  of  spiritual  unction 
— all  these  make  his  chances  of  promotion  rarer  ; 
on  the  other  side  are  ranked  his  magnificent  in- 
tellect, his  swift  judgment,  his  absolutely  imperial 
confidence  in  himself,  and  his  vigilant  activity. 
When  they  remind  him  of  his  mean  origin,  he 
remembers  that  Pope  John  XXII.  was  humbly 
born  hard  by  at  Cahors,  and  that  Urban  IV.  was 
the  son  of  a  cobbler  at  Troyes. 

What  the  episcopate  means  to  an  ambitious 
priest  is  constantly  impressed  on  his  readers  by 
Ferdinand  Fabre.  Yesterday,  a  private  soldier  in 
an  army  of  one  hundred  thousand  men,  the 
bishop  is  to-day  a  general,  grandee  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Church,  received  ad  limina  apostolorum  as 
a  sovereign,  and  by  the  Pope  as  "  Venerable 
Brother."  As  this  ineffable  prize  seems  slipping 
from  the  grasp  of  Rufin  Capdepont,  his  violence 
becomes    insupportable.      At  school    his   tyranny 


FERDINAND    FABRE  165 

had  gained  him  the  nickname  of  Tigranes,  from 
his  likeness  to  the  Armenian  tyrant  king  of  kings  ; 
now  to  all  the  chapter  and  diocese  of  Lormieres 
he  is  I'Abb^  Tigrane,  a  name  to  frighten  children 
with.  At  last,  after  a  wild  encounter,  his  in- 
solence brings  on  an  attack  of  apoplexy  in  the 
bishop,  and  the  hour  of  success  or  final  failure 
seems  approaching.  But  the  bishop  recovers, 
and  in  a  scene  absolutely  admirable  in  execution 
contrives  to  turn  a  public  ceremony,  carefully 
prepared  by  Capdepont  to  humiliate  him,  into  a 
splendid  triumph.  The  bishop,  still  illuminated 
with  the  prestige  of  this  coup,  departs  for  Rome  in 
the  company  of  his  beloved  secretary,  the  Abbe 
Ternisien,  who  he  designs  shall  succeed  him  in 
the  diocese.  Capdepont  is  left  behind,  wounded, 
sulky,  hardly  approachable,  a  feline  monster  who 
has  missed  his  spring. 

But  from  Paris  comes  a  telegram  announcing 
the  sudden  death  of  Monsieur  de  Roquebrun,  and 
Capdepont,  as  Vicar-General,  is  in  provisional 
command  of  the  diocese.  The  body  of  the 
bishop  is  brought  back  to  Lormieres,  but  Capde- 
pont, frenzied  with  hatred  and  passion,  refuses  to 
admit  it  to  the  cathedral.  The  Abbe  Ternisien, 
however,  and  the  other  friends  of  the  last  regime, 
contrive  to  open  the  cathedral  at  dead  of  night, 
and  a  furtive  but  magnificent  ceremony  is  per- 
formed, under  the  roar  of  a  terrific  thunderstorm, 
in  defiance  of  the  wishes  of  Capdepont.  The 
report  spreads  that  not  he,  but  Ternisien,  is  to  be 
bishop,  and  the  clergy  do  not  conceal  their  joy. 
But  the  tale  is  not  true  ;  Rome  supports  the  strong 


i66  FRENCH   PROFILES 

man,  the  priest  with  the  iron  hand,  in  spite  of  his 
scandalous  ferocity  and  his  Gallican  tendencies. 
In  the  hour  of  his  sickening  suspense,  Capdepont 
has  acted  Hke  a  brute  and  a  maniac,  but  with  the 
dawning  of  success  his  tact  returns.  He  excuses 
his  violent  acts  as  the  result  of  illness  ;  he  humbles 
himself  to  the  beaten  party,  he  purrs  to  his  clergy, 
he  rubs  himself  like  a  great  cat  against  the  com- 
fortable knees  of  Rome.  He  soon  rises  to  be 
Archbishop,  and  we  leave  him  walking  at  night  in 
the  garden  of  his  palace  and  thinking  of  the  Tiara. 
"  Who  knows  ?  "  with  a  delirious  glitter  in  his  eyes, 
"  who  knows  ?  " 

With  VAbbe  Tigrane  must  be  read  Lucifer, 
which  is  the  converse  of  the  picture.  In  Rufin 
Capdepont  we  see  the  culmination  of  personal 
ambition  in  an  ecclesiastic  who  is  yet  devoted 
through  the  inmost  fibres  of  his  being  to  the 
interests  of  the  Church.  In  the  story  of  Bernard 
Jourfier  we  follow  the  career  of  a  priest  who  is 
without  individual  ambition,  but  inspired  by  in- 
tense convictions  which  are  not  in  their  essence 
clerical.  Hence  Jourfier,  with  all  his  virtues, 
fails,  while  Capdepont,  with  all  his  faults,  succeeds, 
because  the  latter  possesses,  while  the  former 
does  not  possess,  the  "  vocation."  Jourfier,  who 
resembles  Capdepont  in  several,  perhaps  in 
too  many,  traits  of  character,  is  led  by  his  in- 
domitable obstinacy  to  oppose  the  full  tide  of 
the  monastic  orders  covering  France  with  their 
swarms.  We  are  made  to  feel  the  incumbrance 
of  the  Congregations,  their  elaborate  systems  of 
espionage,  and  the  insult  of  their  direct  appeal  to 


FERDINAND    FABRE  167 

Rome  over  the  heads  of  the  bishops.  We  reaUse 
how  intolerable  the  bondage  of  the  Jesuits  must 
have  been  to  an  independent  and  somewhat 
savage  Gallican  cleric  of  1845,  and  what  oppor- 
tunities were  to  be  found  for  annoying  and  de- 
pressing him  if  he  showed  any  resistance. 

The  young  Abb6  Bernard  Jourfier  is  the  grand- 
son and  the  son  of  men  who  took  a  prominent 
part  in  the  foundation   and  maintenance  of    the 
First  Republic.     Although  he  himself    has   gone 
into  the  Church,  he  retains  an  extreme  pride  in 
the  memory  of  the  Spartans  of  his  family.     To 
resist  the  pretensions    of   the  Regulars    becomes 
with  him  a  passion  and  a  duty,  and  for  expressing 
these   views,   and   for   repulsing   the   advances   of 
Jesuits,  who  see  in  him  the  making  of  a  magni- 
ficent preacher,  Jourfier  is  humiliated  and  hurt  by 
being  hurried    from    one    miserable  succursale  in 
the  mountains  to  another,  where  his  manse  is  a 
cottage  in  some  rocky  combe  (like  the  Devonshire 
"  coomb  ").     At  last  his  chance  comes  to  him  ;  he 
is  given  a  parish  in  the  lowest  and  poorest  part  of 
the  episcopal  city  of  Mireval.     Here  his  splendid 
gifts  as  an  orator  and  his  zeal  for  the  poor  soon 
make  him  prominent,  though  not  with  the  other 
clergy   popular.       His    appearance — his    forehead 
broad  like  that  of  a  young  bull,  his  great  brown 
flashing  eyes,  his  square  chin,  thick  neck  and  in- 
comparable voice — would  be  eminently  attractive 
if  the  temper  of  the  man  were  not  so  hard  and 
repellent,    so    calculated    to    bruise    such    softer 
natures  as  come  in  his  way. 

The  reputation   of  Jourfier  grows  so   steadily. 


i68  FRENCH    PROFILES 

that  the  Chapter  is  unable  to  refuse  him  a  canon's 
stall  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Optat.  But  he  is 
haunted  by  his  mundane  devil,  the  voice  which 
whispers  that,  with  all  his  austerity,  chastity,  and 
elevation  of  heart,  he  is  not  truly  called  of  God 
to  the  priesthood.  So  he  flings  himself  into 
ecclesiastical  history,  and  publishes  in  successive 
volumes  a  great  chronicle  of  the  Church,  inter- 
penetrated by  Gallican  ideas,  and  breathing  from 
every  page  a  spirit  of  sturdy  independence  which, 
though  orthodox,  is  far  from  gratifying  Rome. 
This  history  is  rapidly  accepted  as  a  masterpiece 
throughout  France,  and  makes  him  universally 
known.  Still  he  wraps  himself  in  his  isolation, 
when  the  fall  of  the  Empire  suddenly  calls  him 
from  his  study,  and  he  has  to  prevent  the  citizens 
of  Mireval  from  wrecking  their  cathedral  and 
insulting  their  craven  bishop.  Gambetta,  who 
knew  his  father,  and  values  Jourfier  himself, 
procures  that  he  shall  be  appointed  Bishop  of 
Sylvanes.  The  mitre,  so  passionately  desired  by 
Capdepont,  is  only  a  matter  of  terror  and  dis- 
traction to  Jourfier.  He  is  on  the  point  of  refus- 
ing it,  when  it  is  pointed  out  to  him  that  his 
episcopal  authority  will  enable  him  to  make  a 
successful  stand  against  the  Orders. 

This  decides  him,  and  he  goes  to  Sylvanes  to 
be  consecrated.  But  he  has  not  yet  been  pre- 
conised  by  the  Pope,  and  he  makes  the  fatal 
mistake  of  lingering  in  his  diocese,  harassing  the 
Congregations,  who  all  denounce  him  to  the 
Pope.  At  length,  in  deep  melancholy  and  failing 
health,  he  sets  out  for  Rome,  and  is  subjected  to 


FERDINAND    FABRE  169 

all  the  delays,  inconveniences,  and  petty  humilia- 
tions which  Rome  knows  how  to  inflict  on  those 
who  annoy  her.  The  Pope  sees  him,  but  without 
geniality  ;  he  has  to  endure  an  interview  with  the 
Prefect  of  the  Congregations,  Cardinal  Finella,  in 
which  the  pride  of  Lucifer  is  crushed  like  a  pebble 
under  a  hammer.  He  is  preconised,  but  in  the 
most  scornful  way,  on  sufferance,  because  Rome 
does  not  find  it  convenient  to  embroil  herself  with 
the  French  Republic,  and  he  returns,  a  broken 
man,  to  Sylvan^s.  Even  his  dearest  friends,  the 
amiable  and  charming  trio  of  Galilean  canons, 
who  have  followed  him  from  Mireval,  and  to 
find  offices  for  whom  he  has  roughly  displaced 
Jesuit  fathers,  find  the  bishop's  temper  intolerable. 
His  palace  is  built,  like  a  fortress,  on  a  rocky 
eminence  over  the  city,  and  one  wild  Christmas 
night  the  body  of  the  tormented  bishop  is  dis- 
covered, crushed,  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  whether 
in  suicide  cast  over,  or  flung  by  a  false  delirious 
step  as  he  wandered  in  the  rain.  This  endless 
combat  with  the  Church  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  had  ended,  as  it  was  bound  to  end,  in 
madness  and  despair. 

As  a  psychological  study  Lucifer  is  more  in- 
teresting, perhaps,  than  L'Abbe  Tigrane,  because 
more  complex,  but  it  is  far  from  being  so  admir- 
ably executed.  As  the  story  proceeds,  Jourfier's 
state  of  soul  somewhat  evades  the  reader.  His 
want  of  tact  in  dealing  with  his  diocese  and  with 
the  Pope  are  so  excessive  that  they  deprive  him 
of  our  sympathy,  and  internal  evidence  is  not 
wanting  to  show  that  Fabre,  having  brought  his 


lyo  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Gallican  professor  of  history  to  the  prelacy,  did 
not  quite  know  what  to  do  with  him  then.  To 
make  him  mad  and  tumble  him  over  a  parapet 
seems  inadequate  to  the  patient  reader,  who  has 
been  absorbed  in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual 
problems  presented.  But  the  early  portions  of 
the  book  are  excellent  indeed.  Some  of  the  epi- 
sodes which  soften  and  humanise  the  severity  of 
the  central  interest  are  charming;  the  career  of 
Jourfier's  beloved  nephew,  the  Abbe  Jean  Mon- 
tagnol,  who  is  irresistibly  drawn  towards  the  Jesuits, 
and  at  last  is  positively  kidnapped  by  them  from 
the  clutches  of  his  terrible  uncle;  the  gentle  old 
archpriest  Rupert,  always  in  a  flutter  of  timidity, 
yet  with  the  loyalty  of  steel  ;  the  Canon  Coulazou, 
who  watches  Jourfier  with  the  devotion  of  a  dog 
through  his  long  misanthropic  trances  ;  these  turn 
Luctfer  into  an  enchanting  gallery  of  serious  clerical 
portraits. 

Ill 

But  there  are  other  faces  in  the  priestly  portrait- 
gallery  which  Ferdinand  Fabre  has  painted,  and 
some  of  them  more  lovable  than  those  of  Tigrane 
and  Lucifer.  To  any  one  who  desires  an  easy 
introduction  to  the  novelist,  no  book  can  be  more 
warmly  recommended  than  that  which  bears  the 
title  of  LAbbe  Roitelet,  or,  as  we  might  put  it, 
"The  Rev.  Mr.  Wren"  (1890).  Here  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  variety  of  those  poverty-stricken 
mountain  parishes,  starving  under  the  granite  peaks 
of  the  C6vennes,  which  Fabre  was  the  first  writer 
of  the  imagination  to  explore;   groups  of  squalid 


FERDINAND    FABRE  171 

huts,  sprinkled  and  tumbled  about  rocky  slopes, 
hanging  perilously  over  ravines  split  by  tumul- 
tuous rivulets  that  race  in  uproar  down  to  the 
valleys  of  the  Orb  or  the  Tarn.  Here  we  discover, 
assiduously  but  wearily  devoted  to  the  service 
of  these  parched  communities,  the  Abb6  Cyprien 
Coupiac,  called  Roitelet,  or  the  Wren,  because  he 
is  the  smallest  priest  in  any  diocese  of  France. 
This  tiny  little  man,  a  peasant  in  his  simplicity  and 
his  shyness,  has  one  ungovernable  passion,  which 
got  him  into  trouble  in  his  student-days  at  Mont- 
pellier,  and  does  his  reputation  wrong  even  among 
the  rocks  of  the  black  Espinouze  :  that  is  his  in- 
fatuation for  all  kinds  of  birds.  He  is  like  St. 
Bonaventure,  who  loved  all  flying  things  that  drink 
the  light,  rorem  bibentes  atque  lumen;  but  he  goes 
farther,  for  he  loves  them  to  the  neglect  of  his 
duties. 

Complaints  are  made  of  Coupiac's  intense  devo- 
tion to  his  aviary,  and  he  is  rudely  moved  to  a  still 
more  distant  parish ;  but  even  here  a  flight  of  what 
seem  to  be  Pallas's  sand-grouse  is  his  ruin.  He  is 
summoned  before  the  bishop  at  Montpellier,  and 
thither  goes  the  little  trembling  man,  a  mere  wren 
of  humanity,  to  excuse  himself  for  his  quaint  and 
innocent  vice.  Happily,  the  bishop  is  a  man  of 
the  world,  less  narrow  than  his  subalterns,  and 
in  a  most  charming  scene  he  comforts  the  little 
ornithological  penitent,  and  even  brings  him  down 
from  his  terrible  exile  among  the  rocks  to  a  small 
and  poor  but  genial  parish  in  the  chestnut  wood- 
lands among  his  own  folk,  where  he  can  be  happy. 
For  a  while  the  Abb6  Coupiac  is  very  careful  to 


172  FRENCH    PROFILES 

avoid  all  Vogelweiden  or  places  where  birds  do  con- 
gregate, and  when  he  meets  a  goldfinch  or  a 
wryneck  is  most  particular  to  look  in  the  opposite 
direction;  but  in  process  of  time  he  succumbs, 
and  his  manse  becomes  an  aviary,  like  its  prede- 
cessors. A  terrible  lesson  cures  the  poor  little  man 
at  last.  An  eagle  is  caught  alive  in  his  parish, 
and  he  cannot  resist  undertaking  to  cure  its  broken 
wing.  He  does  so,  and  with  such  success  that  he 
loses  his  heart  to  this  enormous  pet.  Alas  !  the 
affection  is  not  reciprocated,  and  one  morning, 
without  any  warning,  the  eagle  picks  out  one  of 
the  abbe's  eyes.  With  some  difficulty  Coupiac  is 
safely  nursed  to  health  again,  but  his  love  of  birds 
is  gone. 

However,  it  is  his  nature,  shrinking  from  rough 
human  faces,  to  find  consolation  in  his  dumb 
parishioners  ;  he  is  conscious  to  pain  of  that 
"voisinage  et  cousinage  entre  I'homme  et  les 
autres  animaux"  of  which  Charron,  the  friend  of 
Montaigne,  speaks.  So  he  extends  a  fatherly, 
clerical  protection  over  the  flocks  and  herds  of 
Cabrerolles,  and  he  revives  a  quaint  and  obso- 
lescent custom  by  which,  on  Christmas  night,  the 
C6venol  cattle  are  brought  to  the  door  of  their 
parish  church  to  listen  to  the  service,  and  after- 
wards are  blessed  by  the  priest.  The  book  ends 
with  a  sort  of  canticle  of  yule-tide,  in  which  the 
patient  kine,  with  faint  tramplings  and  lowings, 
take  modestly  their  appointed  part ;  and  these  rites 
at  the  midnight  mass  are  described  as  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy  might  have  described  them  if  Dorchester  had 
been  B^darieux.      In  the  whole  of  this  beautiful 


FERDINAND    FABRE  173 

little  novel  Ferdinand  Fabre  is  combating  what  he 
paints  as  a  besetting  sin  of  his  beloved  C6venols — 
their  indifference  and  even  cruelty  to  animals  and 
birds,  from  which  the  very  clergy  seem  to  be  not 
always  exempt. 

To  yet  another  of  his  exclusively  clerical  novels 
but  brief  reference  must  here  be  made,  although 
it  has  been  a  general  favourite.  In  Mon  Oncle 
Ce'lestin  (1881)  we  have  a  study  of  the  entirely 
single  and  tender-hearted  country  priest — a  Ter- 
tuUian  in  the  pulpit,  an  infant  out  of  it,  a  creature 
all  compact  of  spiritual  and  puerile  qualities.  His 
innocent  benevolence  leads  him  blindfold  to  a  de- 
plorable scandal,  his  inexperience  to  a  terrible 
quarrel  with  a  rival  archaeologist,  who  drives 
C^lestin  almost  to  desperation.  His  enemies  at 
length  push  him  so  far  that  they  determine  the 
bishop  to  suspend  him  so  that  he  becomes  revoque  ; 
but  his  health  had  long  been  undermined,  and  he 
is  fortunate  in  dying  just  before  this  terrible  news 
can  be  broken  to  him.  This  tragic  story  is  laid 
in  scenes  of  extraordinary  physical  beauty;  in  no 
book  of  his  has  Fabre  contrived  to  paint  the  sublime 
and  varied  landscape  of  the  C^vennes  in  more  de- 
Hcious  colours.  In  C^lestin,  who  has  the  charge 
of  a  youthful  and  enthusiastically  devoted  nephew, 
Fabre  has  unquestionably  had  recourse  to  his 
recollections  of  the  life  at  Camplong  when  he  was 
a  child,  in  the  company  of  his  sainted  uncle,  the 
Abb6  Fulcran. 

In  the  whole  company  of  Ferdinand  Fabre's 
priests  the  reader  will  not  find  the  type  which 
he    will    perhaps    most    confidently    await — that, 


174  FRENCH    PROFILES 

namely,  of  the  cleric  who  is  untrue  to  his  vows 
of  chastity.  There  is  here  no  Abbe  Mouret  caught 
in  the  mesh  of  physical  pleasures,  and  atoning  for 
his  faute  in  a  pinchbeck  Garden  of  Eden.  The 
impure  priest,  according  to  Fabre,  is  a  dream  of 
the  Voltairean  imagination.  His  churchmen  are 
sternly  celibate ;  their  first  and  most  inevitable 
duty  has  been  to  conquer  the  flesh  at  the  price 
of  their  blood;  as  he  conceives  them,  there  is  no 
place  in  their  thoughts  at  all  for  the  movements 
of  a  vain  concupiscence.  The  solitary  shadow  of 
the  Abbe  Vignerte,  suspended  for  sins  of  this  class, 
does  indeed  flit  across  the  background  of  Lucifer, 
but  only  as  a  horror  and  a  portent.  In  some 
of  these  priests,  as  they  grow  middle-aged,  there 
comes  that  terror  of  women  which  M.  Anatole 
France  notes  so  amusingly  in  Le  Mannequin  d'Osier. 
The  austere  Abbe  Jourfier  trembles  in  all  his  limbs 
when  a  woman,  even  an  old  peasant-wife,  calls  him 
to  the  confessional.  He  obeys  the  call,  but  he 
would  rather  be  told  to  climb  the  snowy  peak  of 
the  highest  C^vennes  and  stay  there. 

To  make  such  characters  attractive  and  enter- 
taining is,  manifestly,  extremely  difficult.  Fabre 
succeeds  in  doing  it  by  means  of  his  tact,  his 
exhaustive  knowledge  of  varieties  of  the  clerical 
species,  and,  most  of  all  perhaps,  by  the  intensity 
of  his  own  curiosity  and  interest.  His  attitude 
towards  his  creations  becomes,  at  critical  moments, 
very  amusing.  "  The  reader  will  hardly  credit  what 
was  his  horrible  reply,"  Fabre  will  say,  or  "  How 
can  we  explain  such  an  extreme  violence  in  our 
principal  personage  ?"     He  forgets  that  these  people 


FERDINAND   FABRE         175 

are  imaginary,  and  he  calls  upon  us,  with  eager 
complacency,  to  observe  what  strange  things  they 
are  saying  and  doing.  His  vivacious  sincerity  per- 
mits him  to  put  forth  with  success  novel  after  novel, 
from  which  the  female  element  is  entirely  excluded. 
In  his  principal  books  love  is  not  mentioned,  and 
women  take  no  part  at  all.  Mon  Oncle  Celestin  is 
hardly  an  exception,  because  the  female  figures  in- 
troduced are  those  of  a  spiteful  virago  and  a  girl 
of  clouded  intelligence,  who  are  merely  machines 
to  lift  into  higher  prominence  the  sufferings  and 
the  lustrous  virtues  of  the  Abb6  Cdestin.  Through 
the  dramatic  excitement,  the  nerve-storm,  of  L'Abbe 
Ttgrane  there  never  is  visible  so  much  as  the  flutter 
of  a  petticoat ;  in  Lucifer,  the  interesting  and  pathetic 
chapter  on  the  text  Domine,  ad  adjuvandum  me  festina 
dismisses  the  subject  in  a  manner  which  gives  no 
encouragement  to  levity.  Those  who  wish  to 
laugh  with  Ariosto  or  to  snigger  with  Aretine 
must  not  come  to  Ferdinand  Fabre.  He  has  not 
faith,  he  pretends  to  no  vocation ;  but  that  reli- 
gious life  upon  which  he  looks  back  in  a  sort 
of  ceaseless  nostalgia  confronts  him  in  its  purest 
and  most  loyal  aspect. 

IV 

The  priest  is  not  absolutely  the  only  subject 
which  preoccupies  Ferdinand  Fabre ;  he  is  inter- 
ested in  the  truant  also.  Wild  nature  is,  in  his 
eyes,  the  great  and  most  dangerous  rival  of  the 
Seminary,  and  has  its  notable  victories.  One  of 
the  prettiest  books  of  his  later  years.  Monsieur  Jean 


176  FRENCH    PROFILES 

(1886),  tells  how  a  precocious  boy,  brought  up  in 
the  manse  of  Camplong — at  last  Fabre  inextricably 
confounded  autobiography  with  fiction — is  tempted 
to  go  off  on  an  innocent  excursion  with  a  fiery- 
blooded  gipsy  girl  called  Mariette.  The  whole 
novel  is  occupied  by  a  recital  of  what  they  saw 
and  what  they  did  during  their  two  days'  esca- 
pade, and  offers  the  author  one  of  those  oppor- 
tunities which  he  loves  for  dealing  almost  in  an 
excess  of  naivete  with  the  incidents  of  a  pastoral 
life.  Less  pretty,  and  less  complete,  but  treated 
with  greater  force  and  conviction,  is  the  tale  of 
Toussaint  Galabru  (1887),  which  tells  how  a  good 
little  boy  of  twelve  years  old  fell  into  the  grievous 
sin  of  going  a-poaching  on  Sunday  morning  with 
two  desperate  characters  who  were  more  than  old 
enough  to  know  better.  The  story  itself  is  nothing. 
What  is  delicious  is  the  reflection  of  the  boy's  can- 
did and  timid  but  adventurous  soul,  and  the  pas- 
sage before  his  eyes  of  the  innumerable  creatures 
of  the  woodland.  At  every  step  there  is  a  stir 
in  the  oleanders  or  a  flutter  among  the  chestnut- 
leaves,  and  ever  and  anon,  through  a  break  in  the 
copses,  there  peep  forth  against  the  rich  blue 
sky  the  white  peaks  of  the  mountains.  Toussaint 
Galabru  is  the  only  book  known  to  me  in  the 
French  language  which  might  really  have  been 
written  by  Richard  Jefferies,  with  some  revision, 
perhaps,  by  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy. 

One  curious  book  by  Ferdinand  Fabre  demands 
mention  in  a  general  survey  of  his  work.  It 
stands  quite  apart,  in  one  sense,  from  his  custom- 
ary labours ;  in  another  sense  it  offers  the  quintes- 


FERDINAND    FABRE         177 

sence  of  them.  The  only  story  which  he  has 
published  in  which  everything  is  sacrificed  to 
beauty  of  form  is  Le  Chevner  (1867),  which 
deserves  a  term  commonly  misused,  and  always 
dubious ;  it  may  be  called  a  "  prose-poem."  In 
his  other  books  the  style  is  sturdy,  rustic  and 
plain,  with  frequent  use  of  patois  and  a  certain 
thickness  or  heaviness  of  expression.  His  phrases 
are  abrupt,  not  always  quite  lucid ;  there  can  be  no 
question,  although  he  protested  violently  against 
the  attribution,  that  Fabre  studied  the  manner  of 
Balzac,  not  always  to  his  advantage.  But  in  Le 
Chevrier — which  is  a  sort  of  discouraged  Daphnis 
and  Chloe  of  the  C^vennes — he  deliberately  com- 
posed a  work  in  modulated  and  elaborate  num- 
bers. It  might  be  the  translation  of  a  poem  in 
Provencal  or  Spanish;  we  seem  in  reading  it  to 
divine  the  vanished  form  of  verse. 

It  is,  moreover,  written  in  a  highly  artificial  lan- 
guage, partly  in  C^venol  patois,  partly  in  French  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  imitated,  it  is  evident,  from 
the  style  of  Amyot  and  Montaigne.  Le  Chevrier 
begins,  in  ordinary  French,  by  describing  how  the 
author  goes  up  into  the  Larzac,  a  bleak  little 
plateau  that  smells  of  rosemary  and  wild  thyme  in 
the  gorges  of  the  High  C^vennes,  for  the  purpose 
of  shooting  hares,  and  how  he  takes  with  him  an 
elderly  goatherd,  Eran  Erembert,  famous  for  his 
skill  in  sport.  But  one  day  the  snow  shuts  them 
up  in  the  farmhouse,  and  Eran  is  cajoled  into 
telling  his  life's  history.  This  he  does  in  the  afore- 
said mixture  of  patois  and  Renaissance  French, 
fairly  but  not  invariably  sustained.     It  is  a  story 

M 


178  FRENCH    PROFILES 

of  passionate  love,  ill  requited.  Eran  has  loved  a 
pretty  foundling,  called  Felice,  but  she  prefers  his 
master's  son,  a  handsome  ne'er-do-weel,  called 
Fr6d6ry,  whom  she  marries.  Eran  turns  from  her 
to  Fran9on,  a  still  more  beautiful  but  worthless 
girl,  and  wastes  his  life  with  her.  Fred^ry  dies  at 
last,  and  Eran  constrains  Felice  to  marry  him  ;  but 
her  heart  is  elsewhere,  and  she  drowns  herself.  It 
is  a  sad,  impassioned  tale,  embroidered  on  every 
page  with  love  of  the  High  C^venol  country  and 
knowledge  of  its  pastoral  rites  and  customs. 

The  scene  is  curious,  because  of  its  various 
elements.  The  snow,  congealing  around  a  neigh- 
bouring peak  in  the  Larzac,  falls  upon  the  branches 
of  a  date-palm  in  the  courtyard  of  the  farmhouse 
at  Mirande,  and  on  the  peacocks,  humped  up  and 
ruffled  in  its  branches.  But  through  all  the  picture, 
with  its  incongruities  of  a  southern  mountain 
country,  moves  the  cahrade,  the  docile  flock  of 
goats,  with  Sacripant,  a  noble  pedigree  billy,  at 
their  head,  and  these  animals,  closely  attending 
upon  Eran  their  herd,  seem  to  form  a  chorus  in 
the  classico-rustic  tragedy.  And  all  the  country, 
bare  as  it  is,  is  eminently  giboyeiix;  it  stirs  and 
rustles  with  the  incessant  movement  of  those  living 
creatures  which  Ferdinand  Fabre  loves  to  describe. 
And  here,  for  once,  he  gives  himself  up  to  the 
primitive  powers  of  love  ;  the  priest  is  kept  out  of 
sight,  or  scarcely  mars  the  rich  fermentation  of  life 
with  glimpses  of  his  soutane  and  his  crucifix. 

Le  Chevrier  has  never  enjoyed  any  success  in 
France,  where  its  archaic  pastoralism  was  mis- 
apprehended  from  the  first.      But  it  was   much 


FERDINAND    FABRE         179 

admired  by  Walter  Pater,  who  once  went  so  far  as 
to  talk  about  translating  it.  The  novelist  of  the 
C6vennes  had  an  early  and  an  ardent  reader  in 
Pater,  to  whom  I  owe  my  own  introduction  to 
Ferdinand  Fabre.  Unfortunately,  the  only  indica- 
tion of  this  interest  which  survives,  so  far  as  I 
know,  is  an  article  in  the  privately  printed  Essays 
from  the  Guardian,  where  Pater  reviews  one  of 
Fabre's  weakest  works,  the  novel  called  Norine 
(1889).  He  says  some  delicate  things  about  this 
idyllic  tale,  which  he  ingeniously  calls  "  a  sym- 
phony in  cherries  and  goldfinches."  But  what 
one  would  have  welcomed  would  have  been  a 
serious  examination  of  one  of  the  great  celibate 
novels,  L'Abbe  Tigrane  or  Lucifer.  The  former  of 
these,  I  know,  attracted  Pater  almost  more  than  any 
other  recent  French  work  in  fiction.  He  found, 
as  Taine  did,  a  solid  psychological  value  in  these 
studies  of  the  strictly  ecclesiastical  passions — the 
jealousies,  the  ambitions,  the  violent  and  masterful 
movements  of  types  that  were  exclusively  clerical. 
And  the  struggle  which  is  the  incident  of  life  really 
important  to  Fabre,  the  tension  caused  by  the 
divine  "  vocation  "  on  the  one  hand  and  the  cry 
of  physical  nature  on  the  other,  this  was  of  the 
highest  interest  to  Pater  also.  He  was  delighted, 
moreover,  with  the  upland  freshness,  the  shrewd 
and  cleanly  brightness  of  Fabre's  country  stories, 
so  infinitely  removed  from  what  we  indolently 
conceive  that  we  shall  find  in  "  a  French  novel." 

An  English  writer,  of  higher  rank  than  Fabre, 
was  revealing  the  C^vennes  to  English  readers  just 
when  the  Frenchman  was  publishing  his  mountain 


i8o  FRENCH    PROFILES 

stories.  If  we  have  been  reading  Le  Chevrier^ 
it  will  be  found  amusing  to  take  up  again  the 
Through  the  Cevennes  with  a  Donkey  of  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson.  The  route  which  the  Scotchman  took 
was  from  Le  Monastier  to  Alais,  across  the  north- 
eastern portion  of  the  mountain-range,  while  Fabre 
almost  exclusively  haunts  the  south-western  slopes 
in  the  H^rault.  Stevenson  brings  before  us  a  bleak 
and  stubborn  landscape,  far  less  genial  than  the 
wooded  uplands  of  BMarieux.  But  in  both 
pictures  much  is  alike.  The  bare  moors  on  the 
tops  of  the  Cevennes  are  the  same  in  each  case, 
and  when  we  read  Stevenson's  rhapsody  on  the 
view  from  the  high  ridge  of  the  Mimerte,  it  might 
well  be  a  page  translated  from  one  of  the  novels 
of  Ferdinand  Fabre.  But  the  closest  parallel  with 
the  Frenchman  is  always  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy, 
whom  in  his  rustic  chapters  he  closely  resembles 
even  in  style.  Yet  here  again  we  have  the  national 
advantage,  since  Fabre  has  no  humour,  or  exceed- 
ingly little. 

Fabre  is  a  solitary,  stationary  figure  in  the 
current  history  of  French  literature.  He  is  the 
gauche  and  somewhat  suspicious  country  bumpkin 
in  the  urban  congregation  of  the  wits.  He  has 
not  a  word  to  say  about  "  schools "  and  "  ten- 
dencies "  ;  he  is  not  an  adept  in  nevrosite  d' artiste. 
It  is  odd  to  think  of  this  rugged  C^venol  as  a  con- 
temporary of  Daudet  and  Goncourt,  Sardou  and 
Bourget ;  he  has  nothing  whatever  in  common 
with  them.  You  must  be  interested  in  his  affairs, 
for  he  pretends  to  no  interest  in  yours.  Like 
Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  "  Native- Born,"  Ferdinand 


FERDINAND    FABRE  i8i 

Fabre  seems  to  say,  "  Let  a  fellow  sing  of  the  little 
things  he  cares  about "  ;  and  what  these  are  we 
have  seen.  They  are  found  among  the  winding 
paths  that  lead  up  through  the  oleander-marshes, 
through  the  vineyards,  through  the  chestnuts,  to 
the  moorlands  and  the  windy  peaks ;  they  are 
walking  beside  the  patient  flocks  of  goats,  when 
Sacripant  is  marching  at  their  head  ;  they  are  the 
poachers  and  the  reapers,  the  begging  friars  and 
the  sportsmen,  all  the  quiet,  rude  population  of 
those  shrouded  hamlets  of  the  H^rault.  Most  of 
all  they  are  those  abbes  and  canons,  those  humble, 
tremulous  parish  priests  and  benevolently  arrogant 
prelates,  whom  he  understands  more  intimately 
than  any  other  author  has  done  who  has  ever 
written.  Persuade  him  to  speak  to  you  of  these, 
and  you  will  be  enchanted  ;  yet  never  forget  that 
his  themes  are  limited  and  his  mode  of  delivery 
monotonous. 

1898. 


A   FIRST   SIGHT   OF   VERLAINE 

In  1893  the  thoughts  of  a  certain  pilgrim  were  a 
good  deal  occupied  by  the  theories  and  experi- 
ments which  a  section  of  the  younger  French 
poets  were  engaged  upon.  In  this  country,  the 
Symbolists  and  Decadents  of  Paris  had  been 
laughed  at  and  parodied,  but,  with  the  exception 
of  Mr.  Arthur  Symons,  no  English  critic  had  given 
their  fentatives  any  serious  attention.  I  became 
much  interested — not  wholly  converted,  certainly, 
but  considerably  impressed — as  I  studied,  not  what 
was  said  about  them  by  their  enemies,  but  what 
they  wrote  themselves.  Among  them  all,  there 
was  but  one,  M.  Mallarme,  whom  I  knew  person- 
ally ;  him  I  had  met,  more  than  twenty  years 
before,  carrying  the  vast  folio  of  his  Manet-Poe 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  London,  dis- 
appointed but  not  discouraged.  I  learned  that 
there  were  certain  haunts  where  these  later  De- 
cadents might  be  observed  in  large  numbers,  drawn 
together  by  the  gregarious  attraction  of  verse.  I 
determined  to  haunt  that  neighbourhood  with  a 
butterfly-net,  and  see  what  delicate  creatures  with 
powdery  wings  I  could  catch.  And,  above  all, 
was  it  not  understood  that  that  vaster  lepidopter, 
that  giant  hawk-moth,  Paul  Verlaine,  uncoiled  his 
proboscis  in  the  same  absinthe-corollas  ? 

Timidity,   doubtless,  would    have    brought    the 


VERLAINE  183 

scheme  to  nought,  if,  unfolding  it  to  Mr.  Henry 
Harland,  who  knows  his  Paris  Hke  the  palm  of  his 
hand,  he  had  not,  with  enthusiastic  kindness,  offered 
to  become  my  cicerone.  He  was  far  from  sharing 
my  interest  in  the  Symbolo-decadent  movement, 
and  the  ideas  of  the  "  poetes  abscons  comme  la 
lune  "  left  him  a  little  cold,  yet  he  entered  at  once 
into  the  sport  of  the  idea.  To  race  up  and  down 
the  Boulevard  St.  Michel,  catching  live  poets  in 
shoals,  what  a  charming  game  1  So,  with  a  beating 
heart  and  under  this  gallant  guidance,  I  started  on 
a  beautiful  April  morning  to  try  my  luck  as  an 
entomologist.  This  is  not  the  occasion  to  speak 
of  the  butterflies  which  we  successfully  captured 
during  this  and  the  following  days  and  nights  ;  the 
expedition  was  a  great  success.  But,  all  the  time, 
the  hope  of  capturing  that  really  substantial  moth, 
Verlaine,  was  uppermost,  and  this  is  how  it  was 
realised. 

As  every  one  knows,  the  broad  Boulevard  St, 
Michel  runs  almost  due  south  from  the  Palais 
de  Justice  to  the  Gardens  of  the  Luxembourg. 
Through  the  greater  part  of  its  course,  it  is 
principally  (so  it  strikes  one)  composed  of  restau- 
rants and  brasseries,  rather  dull  in  the  daytime, 
excessively  blazing  and  gay  at  night.  To  the 
critical  entomologist  the  eastern  side  of  this  street 
is  known  as  the  chief,  indeed  almost  the  only 
habitat  of  poeta  symbolans,  which,  however,  occurs 
here  in  vast  numbers.  Each  of  the  leaders  of  a 
school  has  his  particular  cafe,  where  he  is  to  be 
found  at  an  hour  and  in  a  chair  known  to  the 
habitues  of  the  place.     So  Dryden  sat  at  Will's  and 


i84  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Addison  at  Button's,  when  chocolate  and  ratafia,  I 
suppose,  took  the  place  of  absinthe.  M.  Jean 
Mor^as  sits  in  great  circumstance  at  the  Restau- 
rant d'Harcourt — or  he  did  three  years  ago — and 
there  I  enjoyed  much  surprising  and  stimulating 
conversation.  But  Verlaine  —  where  was  he  ? 
At  his  caf6,  the  Fran9ois- Premier,  we  were  told 
that  he  had  not  been  seen  for  four  days.  "  There 
is  a  letter  for  him — he  must  be  ill,"  said  Madame; 
and  we  felt  what  the  tiger-hunter  feels  when  the 
tiger  has  gone  to  visit  a  friend  in  another  valley. 
But  to  persist  is  to  succeed. 

The  last  of  three  days  devoted  to  this  fascinat- 
ing sport  had  arrived.  I  had  seen  Symbolists  and 
Decadents  to  my  heart's  content.  I  had  learned 
that  Victor  Hugo  was  not  a  poet  at  all,  and  that 
M.  Vi616-Grififin  was  a  splendid  bard  ;  I  had  heard 
that  neither  Victor  Hugo  nor  M.  Viel6-Griffin  had 
a  spark  of  talent,  but  that  M.  Charles  Morice  was 
the  real  Simon  Pure.  I  had  heard  a  great  many 
conflicting  opinions  stated  without  hesitation  and 
with  a  delightful  violence  ;  I  had  heard  a  great 
many  verses  recited  which  I  did  not  understand 
because  I  was  a  foreigner,  and  could  not  have 
understood  if  I  had  been  a  Frenchman.  I  had 
quaffed  a  number  of  highly  indigestible  drinks, 
and  had  enjoyed  myself  very  much.  But  I  had 
not  seen  Verlaine,  and  poor  Mr.  Harland  was  in 
despair.  We  invited  some  of  the  poets  to  dine 
with  us  that  night  (this  is  the  etiquette  of  the 
"Bou'  Mich'")  at  the  Restaurant  d'Harcourt,  and 
a  very  entertaining  meal  we  had.  M.  Mor^as  was 
in  the  chair,  and  a  poetess  with  a  charming  name 


VERLAINE  185 

decorated  us  all  with  sprays  of  the  narcissus  poeticus. 
I  suppose  that  the  company  was  what  is  called 
"  a  little  mixed,"  but  I  am  sure  it  was  very  lyrical. 
I  had  the  honour  of  giving  my  arm  to  a  most 
amiable  lady,  the  Queen  of  Golconda,  whose 
precise  rank  among  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe 
is,  I  am  afraid,  but  vaguely  determined.  The 
dinner  was  simple,  but  distinctly  good  ;  the  chair- 
man was  in  magnificent  form,  un  vrai  chef  d'ecole, 
and  between  each  of  the  courses  somebody  in- 
toned his  own  verses  at  the  top  of  his  voice. 
The  windows  were  wide  open  on  to  the  Boule- 
vard, but  there  was  no  public  expression  of 
surprise. 

It  was  all  excessively  amusing,  but  deep  down 
in  my  consciousness,  tolling  like  a  little  bell,  there 
continued  to  sound  the  words,  "  We  haven't  seen 
Verlaine."  I  confessed  as  much  at  last  to  the 
sovereign  of  Golconda,  and  she  was  graciously 
pleased  to  say  that  she  would  make  a  great  effort. 
She  was  kind  enough,  I  believe,  to  send  out  a  sort 
of  search-party.  Meanwhile,  we  adjourned  to  an- 
other caf6,  to  drink  other  things,  and  our  company 
grew  like  a  rolling  snowball.  I  was  losing  all 
hope,  and  we  were  descending  the  Boulevard,  our 
faces  set  for  home  ;  the  Queen  of  Golconda  was 
hanging  heavily  on  my  arm,  and  having  formed 
a  flattering  misconception  as  to  my  age,  was  warn- 
ing me  against  the  temptations  of  Paris,  when  two 
more  poets,  a  male  and  a  female,  most  amiably 
hurried  to  meet  us  with  the  intoxicating  news  that 
Verlaine  had  been  seen  to  dart  into  a  little 'place 
called  the  Caf6  Soleil  d'Or.     Thither   we  accord- 


i86  FRENCH    PROFILES 

ingly  hied,  buoyed  up  by  hope,  and  our  party, 
now  containing  a  dozen  persons  (all  poets),  rushed 
into  an  almost  empty  drinking-shop.  But  no 
Verlaine  was  to  be  seen.  M.  Mor^as  then  col- 
lected us  round  a  table,  and  fresh  grenadines  were 
ordered. 

Where  I  sat,  by  the  elbow  of  M.  Moreas,  I  was 
opposite  an  open  door,  absolutely  dark,  leading 
down,  by  oblique  stairs,  to  a  cellar.  As  I  idly 
watched  this  square  of  blackness  I  suddenly  saw 
some  ghostly  shape  fluttering  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
It  took  the  form  of  a  strange  bald  head,  bobbing 
close  to  the  ground.  Although  it  was  so  dim  and 
vague,  an  idea  crossed  my  mind.  Not  daring  to 
speak,  I  touched  M.  Mor6as,  and  so  drew  his 
attention  to  it.  "  Pas  un  mot,  pas  un  geste, 
Monsieur ! "  he  whispered,  and  then,  instructed 
in  the  guile  of  his  race,  insidias  Danaiim,  the 
eminent  author  of  Les  Cantilenes  rose,  making  a 
vague  detour  towards  the  street,  and  then  plunged 
at  the  cellar  door.  There  was  a  prolonged  scuffle 
and  a  rolling  downstairs  ;  then  M.  Moreas  re- 
appeared, triumphant  ;  behind  him  something 
flopped  up  out  of  the  darkness  like  an  owl, — 
a  timid  shambling  figure  in  a  soft  black  hat,  with 
jerking  hands,  and  it  peeped  with  intention  to 
disappear  again.  But  there  were  cries  of  "  Venez 
done,  Maitre,"  and  by-and-by  Verlaine  was  per- 
suaded to  emerge  definitely  and  to  sit  by  me. 

I  had  been  prepared  for  strange  eccentricities  of 
garb,  but  he  was  very  decently  dressed  ;  he  re- 
ferred at  once  to  the  fact,  and  explained  that  this 
was   the  suit  which  had  been  bought  for  him  to 


VERLAINE  187 

lecture  in,  in  Belgium.  He  was  particularly  proud 
of  a  real  white  shirt  ;  "  C'est  ma  chemise  de  con- 
ference," he  said,  and  shot  out  the  cuffs  of  it  with 
pardonable  pride.  He  was  full  of  his  experiences 
of  Belgium,  and  in  particular  he  said  some  very 
pretty  things  about  Bruges  and  its  beguinages,  and 
how  much  he  should  like  to  spend  the  rest  of  his 
life  there.  Yet  it  seemed  less  the  mediaeval  build- 
ings -^vhich  had  attracted  him  than  a  museum  of 
old  lace.  He  spoke  with  a  veiled  utterance,  diffi- 
cult for  me  to  follow.  Not  for  an  instant  would 
he  take  off  his  hat,  so  that  I  could  not  see  the 
Socratic  dome  of  forehead  which  figures  in  all 
the  caricatures.  I  thought  his  countenance  very 
Chinese,  and  I  may  perhaps  say  here  that  when 
he  was  in  London  in  1894  I  called  him  a  Chinese 
philosopher.  He  replied  :  "  Chinois — comme  vous 
voulez,  mais  philosophe — non  pas  !" 

On  this  first  occasion  (April  2,  1893),  recita- 
tions were  called  for,  and  Verlaine  repeated  his 
Clair  de  Lune : — 

"  Votre  S.me  est  un  paysage  choisi 

Que  vont  charmant  masques  et  bergamasques 
Jouant  du  luth  et  dansant  et  quasi 
Tristes  sous  leurs  deguisements  fantasques," 

and  presently,  with  a  strange  indifference  to  all 
incongruities  of  scene  and  company,  part  of  his 
wonderful  Mon  Dieu  m'a  dit: — 


"  J'ai  r^pondu  :  *  Seigneur,  vous  avez  dit  mon  ime. 
C'est  vrai  que  je  vous  cherche  et  ne  vous  trouve  pas. 
Mais  vous  aimer  !     Voyez  comme  je  suis  en  bas, 
Vous  dont  I'amour  toujours  monte  comme  la  flamme 


i88  FRENCH    PROFILES 

'  Vous,  la  source  de  paix  que  toute  soif  reclame, 
Helas  !     Voyez  un  peu  tous  mes  tristes  combats  ! 
Oserai-je  adorer  la  trace  de  vos  pas, 
Sur  ces  genoux  saignants  d'un  rampement  infame  ? ' " 

He  recited  in  a  low  voice,  without  gesticulation, 
very  delicately.  Then  M.  Mordas,  in  exactly  the 
opposite  manner,  with  roarings  of  a  bull  and  with 
modulated  sawings  of  the  air  with  his  hand,  in- 
toned an  eclogue  addressed  by  himself  to  Verlaine 
as  "Tityre."  And  so  the  exciting  evening  closed, 
the  passionate  shepherd  in  question  presently  dis- 
appearing again  down  those  mysterious  stairs. 
And  we,  out  into  the  soft  April  night  and  the 
budding  smell  of  the  trees. 

1896. 


THE  IRONY  OF  M.  ANATOLE  FRANCE 

If  we  are  asked,  What  is  the  most  entertaining 
intelligence  at  this  moment  working  in  the  world 
of  letters  ?  I  do  not  see  that  we  can  escape  from 
replying,  That  of  M.  Anatole  France.  Nor  is  it 
merely  that  he  is  sprightly  and  amusing  in  him- 
self ;  he  is  much  more  than  that.  He  indicates 
a  direction  of  European  feeling  ;  he  expresses  a 
mood  of  European  thought.  Excessively  weary 
of  all  the  moral  effort  that  was  applied  to  literature 
in  the  eighties,  all  the  searchings  into  theories  and 
proclaimings  of  gospels,  all  the  fuss  and  strain  of 
Ibsen  and  Tolstoi  and  Zola,  that  the  better  kind 
of  reader  should  make  a  volte-face  was  inevitable. 
This  general  consequence  might  have  been  fore- 
seen, but  hardly  that  M.  Anatole  France,  in  his 
quiet  beginnings,  was  preparing  to  take  the  position 
of  a  leader  in  letters.  He,  obviously,  has  dreamed 
of  no  such  thing ;  he  has  merely  gone  on  develop- 
ing and  emancipating  his  individuality.  He  has 
taken  advantage  of  his  growing  popularity  to  be 
more  and  more  courageously  himself ;  and  doubt- 
less he  is  surprised,  as  we  are,  to  find  that  he  has 
noiselessly  expanded  into  one  of  the  leading 
intellectual  forces  of  our  day. 

After  a  period  of  enthusiasm,  we  expect  a  great 

suspicion   of  enthusiasts  to   set    in.     M.  Anatole 

189 


I90  FRENCH    PROFILES 

France  is  what  they  used  to  call  a  Pyrrhonist  in 
the  seventeenth  century — a  sceptic,  one  who 
doubts  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  struggle 
insanely  against  the  trend  of  things.  The  man 
who  continues  to  cross  the  road  leisurely,  although 
the  cyclists'  bells  are  ringing,  is  a  Pyrrhonist — and 
in  a  very  special  sense,  for  the  ancient  philosopher 
who  gives  his  name  to  the  class  made  himself 
conspicuous  by  refusing  to  get  out  of  the  way  of 
careering  chariots.  After  a  burst  of  moral  excite- 
ment, a  storm  of  fads  and  fanaticism,  there  is 
bound  to  set  in  calm  weather  and  the  reign  of 
indifferentism.  The  ever-subtle  Pascal  noticed 
this,  and  remarked  on  the  importance  to  scepticism 
of  working  on  a  basis  of  ethical  sensitiveness. 
"  Rien  fortifie  plus  le  pyrrhonisme,"  he  says,  "  que 
ce  qu'il  y  en  a  qui  ne  sont  pas  pyrrhoniens."  The 
talent  of  M.  Anatole  France  is  like  a  beautiful 
pallid  flower  that  has  grown  out  of  a  root  fed  on 
rich  juices  of  moral  strenuousness.  He  would 
not  be  so  delicately  balanced,  so  sportive,  so 
elegantly  and  wilfully  unattached  to  any  moral 
system,  if  he  had  not  been  preceded  by  masters 
of  such  a  gloomy  earnestness. 

Le  Mannequin  D'Osier 

After  many  efforts,  more  or  less  imperfectly 
successful,  M.  France  seems  at  last  to  have  dis- 
covered a  medium  absolutely  favourable  to  his 
genius.  He  has  pursued  his  ideal  of  graceful 
scepticism  from  period  to  period.  He  has  sought 
to  discover  it  in  the  life  of  late  antiquity  {Thais),  in 


M.   ANATOLE   FRANCE        191 

the  ironic  naivete  of  the  Middle  Ages  {Balthasar 
and  Le  Putts  de  Sainte  Claire^,  in  the  humours  of 
eighteenth-century  deism  {La  Roiisserie  de  la  Reine 
Pedauque  and  M.  Jerome  Coignard),  in  the  criticism 
of  contemporary  books  (Z,a  Vie  Litteraire\  in  pure 
philosophical  paradox  {Le  Jardin  d Epicure).  Only 
once,  in  my  opinion,  has  he  ceased  to  be  loyal  to 
that  sagesse  et  elegance  which  are  his  instinctive 
aim  ;  only  once — in  that  crude  Le  Lys  Rouge^ 
which  is  so  unworthy  of  his  genius  in  everything 
but  style.  With  this  exception,  through  fifteen 
delightful  volumes  he  has  been  conscientiously 
searching  for  his  appropriate  medium,  and,  surely, 
he  has  found  it  at  last.  He  has  found  it  in  that 
unnamed  town  of  the  north  of  France,  where  he 
listens  to  the  echoes  and  reverberations  of  the  life 
of  to-day,  and  repeats  them  naively  and  maliciously 
to  us  out  of  his  mocking,  resonant  lips. 

The  two  books  which  M.  Anatole  France 
published  in  1897  belong  to  the  new  cate- 
gory. Perhaps  it  was  not  every  reader  of 
L'Orme  du  Mail  who  noticed  the  words  ^^Histoire 
Contentporaine"  at  the  top  of  the  title-page.  But 
they  are  repeated  on  that  of  Le  Mannequin 
d'Osier,  and  they  evidently  have  a  significance. 
Is  this  M.  Anatole  France's  mode  of  indicating 
to  us  that  he  is  starting  on  some  such  colossal 
enterprise  as  a  Come'die  Humaine,  or  a  series  like 
Les  Rougon  Macquart?  Nothing  quite  so  alarming 
as  this,  probably,  but  doubtless  a  series  of  some 
sort  is  intended  ;  and,  already,  it  is  well  to  warn 
the  impetuous  reader  not  to  open  Le  Mannequin 
dOsier  till  he  has  mastered  LOrme  du  Mail,  at  the 


192  FRENCH    PROFILES 

risk  of  failing  to  comprehend  the  situation.  The 
one  of  these  books  is  a  direct  continuation  of 
the  other. 

There  was  no  plot  in  LOrme  du  Mail.  We  were 
introduced,  or  rather  invisibly  suspended  within, 
a  provincial  city  of  France  of  to-day,  where,  under 
all  species  of  decorous  exteriors,  intrigues  were 
being  pushed  forward,  domestic  dramas  conducted, 
the  hollowness  of  intellectual  pretensions  con- 
cealed, and  even — for  M.  Anatole  France  knows 
the  value  of  the  savage  note  in  his  exquisite 
concert — brutal  crimes  committed.  With  a  skill 
all  his  own,  he  interested  us  in  the  typical  indi- 
vidualities in  this  anthill  of  a  town,  and  he  knows 
how  to  produce  his  effects  with  so  light  and  yet  so 
firm  a  hand,  that  he  never  for  a  moment  wearied 
us,  or  allowed  us  to  forget  his  purpose.  He  has 
become  no  less  persuaded  than  was  Montaigne 
himself  of  the  fact  that  man  is  in  his  essence 
"  ondoyant  et  divers,"  and  he  will  teach  us  to  see 
these  incongruities,  no  longer  in  some  fabulous 
Jerome  Coignard,  but  in  the  very  forms  of 
humanity  which  elbow  us  daily  in  the  street.  He 
will  do  this  with  the  expenditure  of  that  humour 
which  alone  makes  the  Pyrrhonist  attitude  toler- 
able, and  he  will  scatter  the  perfume  of  his  gaiety 
in  gusts  so  delicate  and  pure  that  it  shall  pervade 
his  books  from  end  to  end,  yet  never  for  a 
moment  betrays  the  author  into  farce  or  caricature. 
He  will,  moreover,  lift  his  dialogue  on  to  a  plane 
of  culture  much  higher  than  is  customary  even  in 
French  novels,  where  the  standard  of  allusion  and 
topic    in    conversation    has    always    been    more 


M.   ANATOLE    FRANCE        193 

instructed  than  in  English  stories  of  a  similar 
class.  He  will  examine,  with  all  his  array  of  wit 
and  tolerance  and  paradoxical  scepticism,  how  the 
minds  of  average  men  and  women  are  affected  by 
the  current  questions  of  the  hour. 

Readers  of  L'Orme  du  Mail  were  prepared  for 
the  entertainment  which  was  bound  to  follow. 
They  were  familiar  with  the  battle  royal  for  the 
vacant  mitre  which  was  silently  raging  between 
M.  rAbb6  Lantaigne  and  M.  I'Abb^  Guitrel ;  they 
sympathised  with  the  difficulties  of  the  pr^fet,  M. 
Worms-Clavelin,  so  little  anxious  to  make  himself 
disagreeable,  and  so  good-natured  and  clever 
underneath  his  irradicable  vulgarity ;  they  had 
listened  with  eagerness  to  the  afternoon  conver- 
sations in  the  bookshop  of  M.  Paillot ;  they  had 
hung  over  the  back  of  the  seat  in  the  shadow  of 
the  great  elm-tree  on  the  Mall,  to  overhear  the 
endless  amiable  wranglings  of  M.  Lantaigne  and 
the  Latin  professor,  M.  Bergeret,  the  only  persons 
in  the  whole  town  who  "s'interessaient  aux  id^es 
g^n^rales."  They  had  thrilled  over  the  murder  of 
Madame  Houssieu,  and  laughed  at  the  sophisti- 
cations of  M.  de  Terremondre,  the  antiquary. 
LOrme  du  Mail  ended  like  a  volume  of  Tristram 
Shandy,  nowhere  in  particular.  We  laid  it  down 
with  the  sentence,  "  No^mi  est  de  force  a  faire 
un  6veque ; "  saying  to  ourselves,  "  Will  she  do 
it  ? "  And  now  that  we  have  read  Le  Mannequin 
d^ Osier,  we  know  as  little  as  ever  what  she 
can  do. 

But  we  know  many  other  things,  and  we  are 
not  quite  happy.     Le  Mannequin  d  Osier  is  not  so 

N 


194  FRENCH    PROFILES 

gay  a  book  as  its  predecessor,  and  the  Pyrrhonism 
of  M.  Anatole  France  seems  to  have  deepened 
upon  him.  The  air  of  insouciance  which  hung 
over  the  sun-Hghted  Mall  has  faded  away.  M. 
Bergeret  sits  there  no  longer,  or  but  very  seldom, 
arguing  with  M.  I'Abb^  Lantaigne  ;  the  clouds  are 
closing  down  on  the  fierce  Abb6  himself,  and  he 
will  never  be  Bishop  of  Tourcoing.  In  the  new 
book,  M.  Bergeret,  who  took  a  secondary  place  in 
L'Orme  du  Mail,  comes  into  predominance.  His 
sorrows  and  squalor,  the  misfortunes  of  his 
domestic  life,  his  consciousness  of  his  own  tri- 
viality of  character  and  mediocrity  of  brain — 
those  are  subjected  to  cruel  analysis.  The  differ- 
ence between  L'Orme  du  Mail  and  Le  Mannequin 
d  Osier  is  that  between  the  tone  of  Sterne  and  of 
Swift.  The  comparison  of  Madame  Bergeret,  by 
her  husband,  to  an  obsolete  and  inaccurate  Latin 
lexicon  is  extremely  in  the  manner  of  A  Tale  of 
a  Tub,  and  the  horribly  cynical  and  entertaining 
discussion  as  to  the  criminal  responsibility  of  the 
young  butcher  Lecceur — who  has  murdered  an 
old  woman  in  circumstances  of  the  least  attenuated 
hideousness,  but  who  gains  the  sympathy  of  the 
prison  chaplain — is  exactly  in  the  temper  of  the 
"  Examination  of  Certain  Abuses,"  It  is  curious 
to  find  this  Swift-like  tone  proceeding  out  of  the 
Shandean  spirit  which  has  of  late  marked  the 
humour  of  M.  Anatole  France.  He  is  so  little 
occupied  with  English  ideas  that  he  is  certainly 
unconscious  of  the  remarkable  resemblance  be- 
tween his  reflections  as  to  the  nationalisation  of 
certain  forms  of  private  property  at  the  Revolution 


M.   ANATOLE   FRANCE        195 

— "  en  quelque  sorte  un  retour  a  I'ancien  regime," 
and  a  famous  page  of  Carlyle. 

Around  that  dressmaker's  dummy  of  Madame 
Bergeret,  which  gives  its  name  to  the  book,  there 
gather  innumerable  ideas,  whimsical,  melancholy, 
contradictory,  ingenious,  profound.  The  peculiar 
obscurity  and  helplessness  of  poor  M.  Bergeret, 
compiling  a  Virgilhis  Nauticus  with  his  desk  cramped 
by  an  enormous  plaster  cylinder  in  front  of  it,  and 
the  terrible  dummy  behind  it,  exacerbated  by  his 
indigence  and  his  mediocrity,  by  the  infidelities 
of  Madame  Bergeret  and  the  instabihty  of  his 
favourite  pupils,  his  abject  passivity,  like  that  of  a 
delicate,  sentient  thing,  possessing  neither  tongue, 
nor  hands,  nor  feet — all  this  forms  in  the  end  a 
sinister  picture.  Is  M.  Anatole  France  mocking 
his  own  kith  and  kin  ?  Is  the  most  brilliant 
man  of  letters  that  the  modern  system  of  education 
in  France  has  produced  holding  that  very  system 
up  to  ridicule  ?  We  might  warn  him  to  take  care 
that  the  fate  of  Orpheus  does  not  overtake  him, 
were  not  his  tact  and  rapidity  equal  to  his  pene- 
tration. We  are  quite  sure  that,  like  M.  Bergeret, 
when  M.  Roux  recited  his  incomprehensible  poem 
in  vers  litres,  M.  Anatole  France  will  always  know 
the  right  moment  to  be  silent  "  for  fear  of  affront- 
ing the  Unknown  Beauty." 

HiSTOIRE   COMIQUE 

The  intelligent  part  of  the  English  public  has 
been  successfully  dragooned  into  the  idea  that  M. 
Anatole    France    is    the    most    ingenious    of    the 


196  FRENCH    PROFILES 

younger  writers  of  Europe.  It  is  extraordinary, 
but  very  fortunate,  that  the  firm  expression  of  an 
opinion  on  the  part  of  a  few  expert  persons  whose 
views  are  founded  on  principle  and  reason  still 
exercises  a  very  great  authority  on  the  better  class 
of  readers.  When  it  ceases  to  do  so  the  reign  of 
chaos  will  have  set  in.  However,  it  is  for  the 
present  admitted  in  this  country  that  M.  Anatole 
France,  not  merely  is  not  as  the  Georges  Ohnets 
are,  but  that  he  is  a  great  master  of  imagination 
and  style.  Yet,  one  can  but  wonder  how  many 
of  his  dutiful  English  admirers  really  enjoy  his 
books — how  many,  that  is  to  say,  go  deeper  down 
than  the  epigrams  and  the  picturesqueness  ;  how 
many  perceive,  in  colloquial  phrase,  what  it  is  he 
is  "  driving  at,"  and,  having  perceived,  still  admire 
and  enjoy.  It  is  not  so  difficult  to  understand 
that  there  are  English  people  who  appreciate  the 
writings  of  Ibsen  and  of  Tolstoi,  and  even,  to  sink 
fathoms  below  these,  of  D'Annunzio,  because 
although  all  these  are  exotic  in  their  relation  to 
our  national  habits  of  mind,  they  are  direct.  But 
Anatole  France — do  his  English  admirers  realise 
what  a  heinous  crime  he  commits  ? — for  all  his 
lucidity  and  gentleness  and  charm,  Anatole  France 
is  primarily,  he  is  almost  exclusively,  an  ironist. 

In  the  literary  decalogue  of  the  English  reader 
the  severest  prohibition  is  "  Thou  shalt  not  commit 
irony  !  "  This  is  the  unpardonable  offence.  What- 
ever sentiments  a  writer  wishes  to  enforce,  he  has 
a  chance  of  toleration  in  this  country,  if  he  takes 
care  to  make  his  language  exactly  tally  with  his 
intention.     But    once   let   him   adopt   a   contrary 


M.   ANATOLE   FRANCE        197 

method,  and  endeavour  to  inculcate  his  meaning 
in  words  of  a  different  sense,  and  his  auditors  fly 
from  him.  No  one  who  has  endeavoured  for  the 
last  hundred  years  to  use  irony  in  England  as  an 
imaginative  medium  has  escaped  failure.  How- 
ever popular  he  has  been  until  that  moment,  his 
admirers  then  slip  away  from  hinl,  silently,  as 
Tennyson's  did  when  he  wrote  the  later  sections 
of  Maud,  and  still  more  strikingly  as  Matthew 
Arnold's  did  when  he  published  Friendship's 
Garland.  The  result  of  the  employment  of  irony 
in  this  country  is  that  people  steal  noiselessly 
away  from  the  ironist  as  if  he  had  been  guilty  in 
their  presence  of  a  social  incongruity.  Is  it 
because  the  great  example  of  irony  in  our  lan- 
guage is  the  cruel  dissimulation  of  Swift  ?  Is  it 
that  our  nation  was  wounded  so  deeply  by  that 
sarcastic  pen  that  it  has  suspected  ever  since, 
in  every  ironic  humorist,  "the  smiler  with  the 
knife  "  ? 

But  the  irony  of  M.  Anatole  France,  like  that 
of  Renan,  and  to  a  much  higher  degree,  is,  on  the 
contrary,  beneficent.  It  is  a  tender  and  consola- 
tory raillery,  based  upon  compassion.  His  greatest 
delight  is  found  in  observing  the  inconsistencies, 
the  illusions  of  human  life,  but  never  for  the  pur- 
pose of  wounding  us  in  them,  or  with  them.  His 
genius  is  essentially  benevolent  and  pitiful.  This 
must  not,  however,  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  he  is 
an  ironist,  and  perhaps  the  most  original  in  his 
own  sphere  who  has  ever  existed.  Unless  we 
see  this  plainly,  we  are  not  prepared  to  compre- 
hend him  at  all,  and  if  our  temperaments  are  so 


198  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Anglo-Saxon  as  to  be  impervious  to  this  form  of 
approach,  we  shall  do  best  to  cease  to  pretend 
that  we  appreciate  M.  Anatole  France.  To  come 
to  a  case  in  point,  the  very  title  of  the  Histoire 
Comique  is  a  dissimulation.  The  idea  of  calling 
this  tale  of  anguish  and  disillusion  a  "  funny  story" 
would  certainly  baffle  us,  if  we  did  not,  quite  by 
chance,  in  the  course  of  a  conversation,  come 
upon  the  explanation.  Constantin  Marc,  discuss- 
ing the  suicide  of  the  actor  Chevalier,  "  le  trouvait 
comique,  c'est-a-dire  appartenant  aux  com^diens." 
And  this  gives  the  keynote  to  the  title  and  to  the 
tale  ;  it  is  a  story  about  men  and  women  who 
deal  with  the  phenomenal  sides  of  things,  and 
who  act  life  instead  of  experiencing  it.  It  is  a 
book  in  which  the  personages,  with  the  greatest 
calmness,  do  and  say  the  most  terrible  things,  and 
the  irony  consists  in  the  mingled  gravity  and  levity 
with  which  they  do  and  say  them. 

The  design  of  the  author,  as  always — as  most 
of  all  in  that  most  exquisite  of  his  books,  Le  Jardin 
d Epicure — is  to  warn  mankind  against  being  too 
knowing  and  too  elaborate.  Be  simple,  he  says, 
and  be  content  to  be  deceived,  or  you  cannot  be 
happy.  Doctor  Trublet,  in  the  Histoire  Comique, 
the  wise  physician  who  attends  the  theatre,  and 
whom  the  actresses  call  Socrates,  exclaims,  "  Je 
tiens  boutique  de  mensonages.  Je  soulage,  je  con- 
sole. Peut-on  consoler  et  soulager  sans  mentir  ?  " 
This  is  a  characteristic  Anatolian  paradox,  and  no 
one  who  has  followed  the  author's  teaching  will 
find  any  difficulty  in  comprehending  it.  Over  and 
over  again  he  has  preached  that  intelligence  is 


M.   ANATOLE  FRANCE        199 

vanity,  that  the  more  we  know  about  Hfe  the  less 
we  can  endure  the  anguish  of  its  impact.  He  says 
somewhere — is  it  not  in  Le  Lys  Rouge? — that  the 
soul  of  man  feeds  on  chimeras.  Take  this  fabulous 
nourishment  from  us,  and  you  spread  the  banquet 
of  science  before  us  in  vain.  We  starve  on  the 
insufficiency  of  a  diet  which  has  been  deprived  of 
all  our  absurd  traditional  errors,  "  nos  idees  betes, 
augustes  et  salutaires."  It  is  strange  that  all  the 
subtlety  of  this  marvellous  brain  should  have  found 
its  way  back  to  the  axiom,  Unless  ye  become  as 
little  children,  ye  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

These  reflections  may  bewilder  those  who  take 
up  the  Histoire  Comique  as  a  work  of  mere  enter- 
tainment. They  may  even  be  scandalised  by  the 
story;  and  indeed  to  find  it  edifying  at  all,  it  is 
needful  to  be  prepared  for  edification.  Novelists 
are  like  the  three  doctors  whom,  at  a  critical 
moment,  Mme.  Douce  recommends  to  be  called 
in.  They  were  all  clever  doctors,  but  Mme.  Douce 
could  not  find  the  address  of  the  first,  the  second 
had  a  bad  character,  and  the  third  was  dead.  M. 
Anatole  France  belongs  to  the  first  category,  but 
we  must  take  care  that  we  know  his  address.  In 
the  Histoire  Comique  he  has  quitted  his  series  called 
Histoire  Contemporaine,  and,  we  regret,  M.  Bergerat. 
Nor  has  he  returned,  as  we  admit  we  hoped  he 
had  done,  to  the  Rotisserie  de  la  Reine  Pe'dauque, 
and  the  enchanting  humours  of  his  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. He  has  written  a  novel  of  to-day,  of  the 
same  class  as  Le  Lys  Rouge.  He  has  taken  the 
coulisses  of  a  great  theatre  as  the  scene  of  the  very 


200  FRENCH    PROFILES 

simple  intrigue  of  his  story,  which  is,  as  always 
with  M.  Anatole  France,  more  of  a  chronicle  than 
a  novel,  and  extremely  simple  in  construction. 

He  has  chosen  the  theatre  for  his  scene,  one 
may  conjecture,  because  of  the  advantage  it  offers 
to  a  narrator  who  wishes  to  distinguish  sharply 
between  emotions  and  acts.  It  troubles  M.  Anatole 
France  that  people  are  never  natural.  They 
scarcely  ever  say  a  thing  because  they  think  it. 
They  say  it  because  it  seems  the  proper  thing  to 
say,  and  it  is  extremely  rare  to  find  any  one  who  is 
perfectly  natural.  In  this  book  F^licie  Nanteuil 
congratulates  herself  that  her  lover,  Robert  de 
Ligny,  is  natural  ;  but  that  is  her  illusion  ;  he  is 
not.  This  contrast  between  what  people  feel  and 
think  and  what  they  say  is  projected  in  the  highest 
relief  upon  the  theatre.  A  violent  symbol  of  this  is 
shown  in  the  great  scene  where  the  actress,  fresh 
from  the  funeral  of  the  man  whose  jealousy  has 
destroyed  her  happiness  for  ever,  is  obliged,  at  a 
rehearsal,  to  repeat  over  and  over  the  phrase, 
"  Mon  cousin,  je  suis  6veill6e  toute  joyeuse  ce 
matin." 

It  would  perhaps  be  difficult  to  point  to  a  single 
book  which  M.  Anatole  France  has  published  in 
which  his  theory  that  only  two  things,  beauty  and 
goodness,  are  of  any  importance  in  life,  seems  at 
first  sight  to  be  less  prominent  than  in  his  Histoire 
Comique.  But  it  prevails  here,  too,  we  shall  find, 
if  we  are  not  hasty  in  judgment.  And  if  we  do 
not  care  to  examine  the  philosophy  of  the  story, 
and  to  reconcile  its  paradoxes  with  ethical  truth, 
we  can  at  least  enjoy  the  sobriety,  the  precision, 


M.   ANATOLE   FRANCE        201 

the  elasticity  of  its  faultless  style.  If  the  reader 
prefers  to  do  so,  he  may  take  Histoire  Comique 
simply  as  a  melancholy  and  somewhat  sensuous 
illustration  of  the  unreasonable  madness  of  love, 
and  of  the  insufficiency  of  art,  with  all  its  discipline, 
to  regulate  the  turbulent  spirit  of  youth. 

1903. 


PIERRE    LOTI 

It  is  one  of  the  advantages  of  foreign  criticism 
that  it  can  stand  a  little  aloof  from  the  movement 
of  a  literature,  and  be  unaffected  by  the  passing 
fluctuations  of  fashion.  It  is  not  obliged  to  take 
into  consideration  the  political  or  social  accidents 
which  may  affect  the  reputation  of  an  author  at 
home.  The  sensitive  and  dreamy  traveller  whose 
name  stands  at  the  head  of  this  page  was,  for  ten 
years  after  his  first  appearance  with  that  delicious 
fantasia  which  he  called  Raharu,  but  which  the 
public  insisted  on  knowing  as  Le  Manage  de  Loti, 
the  spoiled  favourite  of  the  Parisian  press.  His 
writings  of  this  first  period  have  been  frequently 
examined  in  England,  by  no  one,  however,  so 
delicately  and  exhaustively  as  by  Mr.  Henry 
James.  In  1891  "  Pierre  Loti"  (whose  real  name, 
of  course,  is  Captain  Louis  Marie  Julien  Viaud) 
was  elected  a  member  of  the  French  Academy. 
His  candidature  began  in  mischief,  as  we  read  in 
the  Journal  of  Goncourt,  and  in  jest  it  ended.  His 
discours  de  reception  may  have  been  a  very  diverting 
document,  but  it  could  not  be  considered  a  wise 
one.  The  merry  sailor  had  his  joke,  and  lost  his 
public — that  is  to  say,  not  to  exaggerate,  he  alien- 
ated the  graver  part  of  it.  Since  that  time  there 
has  been  a  marked  disposition  in  French  criticism 


PIERRE    LOTI  203 

to  reduce  Pierre  Loti's  pretentions,  to  insist  upon 
"showing  him  his  place."  If  the  attention  paid 
him  before  was  excessive,  so  has  been  the  neglect 
which  has  since  been  his  portion.  Neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  has  been  perfectly  sane  ;  neither 
one  nor  the  other  should  prevent  a  foreign  critic 
from  endeavouring,  from  the  vantage-ground  of 
distance,  to  discover  the  place  in  contemporary 
literature  held  by  an  artist  whose  range  is  limited, 
but  who  possesses  exquisite  sensibilities  and  a  rare 
faculty  of  notation.  In  the  following  pages  I  have 
successively  examined  the  main  publications  of 
Pierre  Loti  since  the  crisis  in  his  literary  fortunes. 

Le  Desert 

This  is  the  first  work  of  importance  which 
Pierre  Loti  has  published  since  he  was  made  an 
Academician,  for  Fantome  d' Orient  exceeded  the 
permission  given  to  its  author  to  be  sentimental 
and  languishing,  while  Maielot,  in  spite  of  certain 
tender  pages,  was  distinctly  below  his  mark.  The 
disturbance  caused  by  his  surprising  entry  into  the 
Mazarin  Palace  must  now  have  passed  away,  for 
in  his  new  book  he  is  eminently  himself  again. 
This,  at  all  events,  is  du  meilleur  Loti,  and  the 
patient  readers  of  fifteen  previous  volumes  know 
what  that  means.  There  is  no  more  curious  pheno- 
menon in  the  existing  world  of  letters  than  the 
fascination  of  Loti.  Here  is  a  man  and  a  writer 
of  a  thousand  faults,  and  we  forgive  them  all.  He 
is  a  gallant  sailor,  and  he  recounts  to  us  his 
timidities  and  his  effeminacies  ;  we  do  not  care. 


204  FRENCH    PROFILES 

He  is  absolutely  without  what  we  call  "  taste "  ; 
he  exploits  the  weakness  of  his  mother  and  the 
death-bed  of  his  aunt  ;  it  makes  no  difference  to 
us.  Irritated  travellers  of  the  precise  cast  say  that 
he  is  inaccurate  ;  no  matter.  Moralists  throw  up 
their  hands  and  their  eyes  at  Aziyade  and  Chrysan- 
theme  and  Suleima  ;  well,  for  the  moment,  we  are 
tired  of  being  moral.  The  fact  is,  that  for  those 
who  have  passed  under  the  spell  of  Loti,  he  is  irre- 
sistible. He  wields  the  authority  of  the  charmer, 
of  the  magician,  and  he  leads  us  whither  he 
chooses.  The  critical  spirit  is  powerless  against 
a  pen  so  delicately  sensitive,  so  capable  of  play- 
ing with  masterly  effect  on  all  the  finer  stops  of 
our  emotions. 

Even  the  sempiternal  youth  of  Loti,  however,  is 
waning  away,  and  we  are  sensible  in  Le  Desert 
that  the  vitality  of  the  writer  is  not  what  it  was 
when  he  made  his  first  escapades  in  Senegambia, 
in  Montenegro,  in  Tahiti.  Doubtless,  the  austerity 
of  the  theme  excludes  indiscretion  ;  there  is  little 
room  for  scandal  in  the  monastery  of  Mount  Sinai 
or  in  the  desert  of  Tih.  But  the  secret  of  the 
sovereign  charm  of  Loti  has  always  been  the 
exactitude  with  which  his  writing  has  transcribed 
his  finest  and  most  fleeting  emotions.  He  has 
held  up  his  pages  like  wax  tablets  and  has  pressed 
them  to  his  heart.  This  deep  sincerity,  not  really 
obscured  to  any  degree  by  his  transparent  affecta- 
tions, has  given  his  successive  books  their  poig- 
nancy. And  he  has  always  known  how  to  combine 
this  sincerity  with  tact,  no  living  writer  under- 
standing more   artfully   how    to    arrange  and    to 


PIERRE    LOTI  205 

suggest,  to  heighten  mystery  or  to  arrest  an 
indolent  attention.  Hence  it  would  not  be  like 
him  to  conceal  the  advances  of  middle  age,  or  to 
attempt  to  deceive  us.  We  find  in  Le  Desert  a 
Loti  who  is  as  faithful  to  his  forty-five  years  as 
the  author  of  Le  Roman  dun  Spahi  was  to  his  five- 
and-twenty.  The  curiosity  in  mankind,  and  in 
particular  in  himself,  seems  to  have  grown  less 
acute  ;  the  outlook  on  the  world  is  clearer  and 
firmer,  less  agitated  and  less  hysterical.  The 
central  charm,  the  exquisite  manner  of  expressing 
perfectly  lucid  impressions,  remains  absolutely 
unmodified. 

The  book  is  the  record  of  an  expedition  which 
occupied  just  four  weeks.  Armed  with  a  safe- 
conduct  from  the  powerful  Seid,  Omar  El 
Senoussi  El  Hosni,  at  the  end  of  February  of 
last  year,  and  in  company  of  a  noble  friend 
whose  name  does  not  occur  in  his  pages,  although 
it  constantly  occupied  the  newspapers  of  Paris, 
Pierre  Loti  started  from  Cairo  on  his  way  to 
Palestine.  His  great  design  was  to  pass  through 
the  heart  of  Idumaea,  by  the  route  of  Petra,  it 
having  been  ten  years  since  any  European  had 
crossed  that  portion  of  the  desert.  The  sheik  of 
Petra,  it  appears,  is  in  revolt  against  both  Turkey 
and  Egypt,  and  has  closed  a  route  which  in 
Stanley's  day  was  open  and  comparatively  easy. 
Loti  was  unable,  as  will  be  seen,  to  achieve  his 
purpose,  but  a  unique  fortune  befell  him.  In  the 
meanwhile,  he  started  by  Suez,  landing  on  the 
other  side  of  the  gulf,  ascended  Sinai,  descended 
again    eastward,   reached    the    sea,   and    marched 


2o6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

beside  it  up  to  the  head  of  the  bay,  halting  in 
that  strange  little  town  of  Akabah,  which  repre- 
sents the  Eziongaber  of  Scripture  and  the  -^lama 
of  the  Crusaders.  From  this  point  he  should 
have  started  for  Petra ;  but  as  that  proved  quite 
impossible,  the  expedition  held  a  little  to  the  west 
and  proceeded  north  through  the  singular  and 
rarely  visited  desert  of  Tih,  the  land  of  the 
Midianites  and  the  Amalekites.  On  Good  Friday 
they  crossed  the  frontier  of  Palestine,  and  three 
days  later  dismounted  in  one  of  the  most  ancient 
and  most  mysterious  cities  in  the  world,  Gaza  of 
the  Philistines,  a  land  of  ruins  and  of  dust,  a 
cluster  of  aged  minarets  and  domes  girdled  by 
palm-trees.  The  book  closes  with  the  words, 
"To-morrow,  at  break  of  day,  we  shall  start  for 
Jerusalem." 

The  sentiment  of  the  desert  has  never  been  so 
finely  rendered  before.  Without  emphasis,  in  his 
calm,  progressive  manner,  Loti  contrives  to  plunge 
us  gradually  in  the  colour  and  silence  and  desola- 
tion of  the  wilderness.  His  talent  for  bringing  up 
before  the  eye  delicate  and  complicated  schemes 
of  aerial  colour  was  never  more  admirably  exer- 
cised. He  makes  us  realise  that  we  have  left 
behind  us  the  littleness  and  squalor  of  humanity, 
lost  in  the  hushed  immensity  of  the  landscape. 
There  are  no  crises  in  his  narrative  ;  it  proceeds 
slowly  onward,  and,  by  a  strange  natural  magic 
in  the  narrator,  we  sweep  onward  with  him.  The 
absence  of  salient  features  concentrates  our  atten- 
tion on  the  vast  outlines  of  the  scene.  As  they 
left  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  the  travellers 


PIERRE   LOTI  207 

quitted  their  European  dress,  and  with  it  they 
seemed  to  have  left  the  western  world  behind. 
Every  night,  as  they  camped  in  darkness,  the 
granite  peaks  still  incandescent  about  them,  the 
air  full  of  warm  aromatic  perfumes,  they  descended 
into  a  life  without  a  future  and  without  a  past, 
into  a  dim  land  somewhere  behind  the  sun  and 
the  moon. 

This  is  the  class  of  impression  which  Pierre 
Loti  is  particularly  fortunate  in  rendering.  We 
turn  from  his  pages  to  those  of  a  traveller  who 
was,  in  his  own  class,  an  admirable  writer,  a  quick 
and  just  observer.  Forty  years  before  Loti  set 
forth,  Canon  (afterwards  Dean)  Stanley  attempted 
almost  exactly  the  same  adventure,  and  his  "  Sinai 
and  Palestine  "  is  still  a  classic.  It  is  very  instruc- 
tive to  see  how  the  same  scenes  struck  two  such 
distinct  minds,  both  so  intelligent  and  subtle, 
but  the  one  a  philosopher,  the  other  an  artist. 
One  of  the  most  singular  spots  on  the  earth's 
surface  must  be  the  desolate  shore  of  the  still 
more  desolate  Gulf  of  Akabah.  This  is  how 
Stanley  regarded  it : — 

"  What  a  sea  !  what  a  shore  !  From  the  dim 
silvery  mountains  on  the  further  Arabian  coast, 
over  the  blue  waters  of  the  sea,  melting  into 
colourless  clearness  as  they  roll  up  the  shelly 
beach — that  beach  red  with  the  red  sand,  or  red 
granite  gravel,  that  pours  down  from  the  cliffs 
above — those  cliffs  sometimes  deep  red,  some- 
times yellow  and  purple,  and  above  them  all  the 
blue  cloudless  sky  of  Arabia.  Of  the  red  sand 
and    rocks    I    have    spoken  ;    but,    besides   these, 


2o8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

fragments  of  red  coral  are  for  ever  being  thrown 
up  from  the  shores  below,  and  it  is  these  coralline 
forests  which  form  the  true  '  weeds '  of  this  fan- 
tastic sea.  But,  above  all,  never  did  I  see  such 
shells.  Far  as  your  eye  can  reach  you  can  see 
the  beach  whitening  with  them,  like  bleaching 
bones." 

This  is  eloquent,  and  Stanley  is  seldom  so  much 
moved.  But  how  much  broader  is  the  palette  on 
Loti's  thumb,  and  how  much  more  vivid  is  his 
fragment  of  the  same  landscape  : — 

"  L'ensemble  des  choses  est  rose,  mais  il  est 
comme  barr6  en  son  milieu  par  une  longue  bande 
infinie,  presque  noire  a  force  d'etre  intens^ment 
bleue,  et  qu'il  faudrait  peindre  avec  du  bleu  de 
Prusse  pur  legerement  z6br6  de  vert  ^meraude. 
Cette  bande,  c'est  la  mer,  I'invraisemblable  mer 
d'Akabah  ;  elle  coupe  le  desert  en  deux,  nette- 
ment,  crument  ;  elle  en  fait  deux  parts,  deux 
zones  d'une  couleur  d'hortensia,  d'un  rose  exquis 
de  nuage  de  soir,  ou,  par  opposition  avec  ces 
eaux  aux  couleurs  trop  violentes  et  aux  contours 
trop  durs,  tout  semble  vaporeux,  indecis  a  force 
de  miroiter  et  d'eblouir,  ou  tout  6tincelle  de  nacre, 
de  granit  et  de  mica,  oii  tout  tremble  de  chaleur 
et  de  mirage." 

The  analysis  of  such  a  passage  as  this,  and  it  is 
not  exceptionally  remarkable,  tends  to  show  the 
reader  what  a  singular,  perhaps  what  an  un- 
precedented gift  Loti  has  for  recording,  with 
absolute  precision,  the  shades  and  details  of  a 
visual  effect.  His  travels  in  the  desert,  where 
there   is   scarcely  anything  but  elementary  forms 


PIERRE    LOTI  209 

of  light  and  colour  to  be  seen,  have  given  him  an 
unparalleled  opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  a 
talent  which  is  less  frequent  than  we  are  apt  to 
suppose,  and  which  no  recent  French  writer  has 
possessed  in  equal  measure.  There  are  pages  of 
Z^  Desert  with  which  there  is  nothing  in  European 
literature,  of  their  limited  class,  to  compare,  except 
certain  of  the  atmospheric  pictures  in  Fromentin's 
two  books  and  in  Modern  Painters.  How  bad  this 
sort  of  thing  can  be  in  clumsy  hands,  the  gaudy 
sunsets  of  William  Black  remind  us.  We  turn  ia 
horror  from  the  thought,  and  re-read  the  descrip- 
tions in  Le  Desert  of  morning  and  evening  from 
the  ramparts  of  the  monastery  on  Mount  Sinai,  of 
the  enchanted  oasis  of  Oued-el-Ain,  of  the  ceme- 
tery of  Akabah  at  midnight.  These,  and  a  score 
more  pictures,  seem  to  pass  in  the  very  reality  of 
vision  before  our  eyes,  as  the  author  quietly  rolls 
them  out  of  the  magic  lantern  of  his  journal. 

The  lover  of  adventure  will  find  nothing  to 
excite  him  in  Loti's  panorama.  The  Bedouins 
were  amiable  and  exacting,  the  expedition  never 
lost  its  way,  such  dangers  as  threatened  it  proved 
merely  to  be  mirages.  If  the  travellers  met  a 
panther  in  a  cave,  it  merely  opened  half  a  yellow 
eye  ;  if  robbers  hovered  in  the  distance,  they 
never  came  within  rifle  shot.  Mr.  Rider  Haggard 
would  make  our  flesh  creep  in  a  single  paragraph 
more  than  the  amiable  French  pilgrim  does  in  his 
whole  volume.  In  the  deep  and  sonorous  desert 
Loti  went  to  seek,  not  a  sword,  but  peace.  One 
central  impression  remains  with  the  reader,  of  a 
great  empty  red  land,  a  silent  Edom,  red  as  when 

O 


2IO  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Diodorus  Siculus  described  it  two  thousand  years 
ago,  unchanging  in  its  dry  and  resonant  sterility. 
Loti's  book  is  simply  the  record  of  a  peaceful 
promenade,  on  the  backs  of  swaying  dromedaries, 
across  a  broad  corner  of  this  vague  and  rose- 
coloured  infinity. 

1895. 

Jerusalem 

In  the  midst  of  that  persistent  and  maddening 
search  for  novelty  which  is  the  malady,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  absurdity,  of  our  feverish  age,  there  is 
present  in  most  of  us  an  instinct  of  a  diametrically 
opposite  nature.  If  no  quarter  of  a  century  has 
ever  flung  itself  against  the  brazen  door  of  the 
future  with  so  crazy  a  determination  to  break  into 
its  secrets,  to  know,  at  all  hazards,  what  to-morrow 
is  to  be  like,  it  is  equally  certain  that  no  previous 
epoch  has  observed  with  so  deep  an  attention  the 
relics  of  the  extreme  past,  nor  listened  with  an  ear 
bent  so  low  for  a  whisper  from  the  childhood  of 
the  world.  The  bustle  of  modern  life  cannot 
destroy  our  primal  sense  of  the  impressiveness  of 
mystery,  and  nothing  within  our  range  of  ideas  is 
so  mysterious  as  the  life  which  those  led  who  im- 
printed on  the  face  of  our  earth  indelible  marks  of 
their  force  two  or  even  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Of  all  the  human  forces  which  interest  and  perplex, 
those  of  the  founders  of  religion  overpower  the 
imagination  most.  If  we  can  discover  on  this 
earth  a  city  which  has  been  the  cradle,  not  of  one 
mode  of  faith,  but  of  many  modes,  we  may  be 
sure  that  around  the  crumbling  and  defaced  walls 


PIERRE    LOTI  211 

of  that  city  a  peculiar  enchantment  must  depend. 
There  is  but  one  such  place  in  the  world,  and  no 
processes  of  civilisation,  no  removal  of  barriers,  no 
telegraphs  or  railways,  can  part  the  idea  of  Jeru- 
salem from  its  extraordinary  charm  of  sacrosanct 
remoteness.  The  peculiar  sentiment  of  Zion  is 
well  expressed  for  us  in  the  volume  which  Pierre 
Loti  has  dedicated  to  it,  a  book  which  none 
of  those  who  propose  to  visit  the  Holy  Land 
should  fail  to  pack  away  in  their  trunks.  M. 
Loti  is  the  charmer  par  excellence  among  living 
writers.  To  him  in  higher  degree  than  to  any  one 
else  is  given  the  power  of  making  us  see  the  object 
he  describes,  and  of  flooding  the  vision  in  the  true, 
or  at  all  events  the  effective,  emotional  atmosphere. 
He  has  no  humour,  or  at  least  he  does  not  allow 
it  to  intrude  into  his  work.  To  take  up  a  book  on 
the  Holy  Land,  and  to  find  it  jocose — what  an 
appalling  thing  that  would  be  !  We  fancy  that 
Jerusalem  is  one  of  the  few  cities  which  Mark 
Twain  has  never  described.  May  he  long  be 
prevented  from  visiting  it  !  A  sense  of  humour  is 
an  excellent  thing  in  its  place  ;  but  the  ancient 
and  mysterious  cradles  of  religion  are  not  its 
proper  fields  of  exercise.  Mr.  Jerome's  Three 
Men  do  very  well  in  a  Boat  ;  but  it  would  require 
the  temper  of  an  archimandrite  to  sojourn  with 
them  in  Jerusalem.  M.  Loti  is  never  funny  ;  but 
he  is  pre-eminently  sensitive,  acute,  and  sym- 
pathetic. 

With  most  of  us  theidea  of  Jerusalem  was  founded 
in  childhood.  We  retain  the  impression  of  a 
clean,  brilliantly  white  city,  with  flat  roofs  and  a  few 


212  FRENCH    PROFILES 

scattered  domes,  perched  on  the  crag  of  a  mountain, 
while  precipices  yawn  below  it  and  a  broken  desert 
spreads  around.  To  enhance  the  whiteness  of  the 
shining  town,  the  sky  had  usually  been  surcharged 
with  tempest  by  the  artist.  We  formed  the  notion 
that  if  we  could  climb  to  its  neatly-fashioned  gates 
and  escape  the  terrors  of  the  dark  gulfs  below, 
something  very  exquisite — above  all,  very  fresh, 
trim,  and  lustrous — would  reward  us  inside  those 
strange  ramparts.  It  is  thus  that  Jerusalem  appears 
to-day  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  spiritual  pil- 
grims. The  hymns  we  sing  and  the  sermons  we 
listen  to  support  this  illusion.  They  confound  the 
New  Jerusalem  with  the  old,  and  they  suggest  the 
serenity  and  beauty  of  broad  white  streets  and 
saintly  calm.  Nothing  could  be  falser  to  fact. 
The  real  Jerusalem  is  what  Lord  Chesterfield  calls, 
in  another  sense,  "a  heterogeneous  jumble  of 
caducity."  It  is  a  city  that  has  turned  reddish 
with  the  concentrated  dust  of  centuries.  Under 
this  coating  of  dust  there  lurk  fragments  of  all  the 
civilisations  which  have  swept  over  it,  one  after  the 
other,  one  in  the  steps  of  the  other. 

This  is  the  solemnising  (even  the  terrifying) 
aspect  of  Jerusalem.  Its  composite  monuments, 
in  their  melancholy  abandonment,  speak  of  the 
horrors  of  its  historic  past.  Nowhere  can  this 
past  be  heard  to  speak  more  plainly  than  in  the 
wonderful  kiosk,  covered  with  turquoise-coloured 
faience,  which  stands  close  to  the  Mosque  of  Omar 
in  the  Haram-esh-Cherif.  M.  Loti  describes  its 
double  row  of  marble  columns  as  a  museum  of 
all  the  debris  of  the  ages.     Here  are  Greek  and 


PIERRE    LOTI  213 

Roman  capitals,  fragments  of  Byzantine  and  of 
Hebrew  architecture  ;  and  among  these  compara- 
tively historic  specimens  there  are  others  of  a 
wild  and  unknown  style,  at  the  sight  of  which  the 
imagination  goes  back  to  some  forgotten  art  of  the 
primitive  Jebusites,  the  very  nature  of  which  is 
lost  in  the  obscurity  of  remote  time.  It  is  the 
peculiarity  of  Jerusalem  that,  whilst  nothing  has 
been  completely  preserved,  nothing  has  been 
wholly  lost.  Jealous  religions  have  fought  with 
one  another  for  the  possession  of  this  rocky 
sanctuary  which  they  all  have  claimed.  None 
has  entirely  succeeded,  and  gradually  all  have 
settled  down  to  an  uneasy  toleration,  each  scrap- 
ing away  the  dust  and  fashioning  an  altar  for  itself 
among  cyclopean  stones  which  were  ancient  in  the 
days  of  Solomon,  inside  fortifications  which  Herod 
may  have  built  over  the  place  of  martyrdom  of 
some  primitive  and  fabulous  saint. 

At  the  very  foot  of  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 
where  the  path  has  crossed  the  Kedron  and  is  just 
about  to  mount  again  towards  Gethsemane,  there 
is  an  extraordinary  example  of  this  sordid  and 
multifarious  sanctity.  A  melancholy  mausoleum 
is  seen,  in  the  midst  of  which  an  ancient  iron  door 
admits  to  the  Tomb  of  the  Virgin,  a  church  of  the 
fourth  century,  which,  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years,  has  been  the  theatre  of  incessant  ecclesiastical 
battle.  At  the  present  moment  the  Western 
Churches  are  excluded  from  this  singular  con- 
venticle ;  but  the  Greeks,  the  Armenians,  the 
Syrians,  the  Abyssinians,  the  Copts,  and  even  the 
Mahometans,    make    themselves    at    home    in    it. 


214  FRENCH    PROFILERS 

The  visitor  enters,  and  is  met  by  darkness  and  a 
smell  of  damp  and  mildew.  A  staircase,  dimly 
perceived  before  him,  leads  down  into  the  bowels 
of  the  earth,  and  presently  introduces  him  to  a 
church,  which  is  more  like  a  grotto  than  a  human 
construction,  and  continues  to  sink  lower  as  he 
proceeds.  This  strange  cavern  is  dimly  lighted  by 
hundreds  of  gold  and  silver  lamps,  of  extreme 
antiquity,  hung  from  the  low  roof  in  wreaths  and 
garlands.  Within  this  agitating  place,  which  is  full 
of  dark  corners  and  ends  of  breakneck  stairs  that 
climb  to  nothing,  five  or  six  religions,  each  hating 
the  rest,  carry  on  simultaneously  their  ancient 
rituals,  and  everywhere  there  ascend  discord  of 
incoherent  prayer  and  distracted  singing,  with 
candles  waving  and  incense  burning,  processions 
in  mediaeval  brocades  that  disturb  kneeling  pilgrims 
in  the  green  turban  of  Mecca  ;  a  chaos  of  con- 
flicting religions  humming  and  hurrying  in  the 
darkness  of  this  damp  and  barbarous  cavern. 
Nothing  could  give  a  stronger  impression  of  the 
bewildered  genius  of  Jerusalem. 

It  was  the  privilege  of  M.  Loti  to  be  admitted  to 
the  arcane  treasuries  of  the  Armenian  Church  in 
Jerusalem,  a  privilege  which,  we  understand  him 
to  say,  no  previous  traveller  has  enjoyed.  Under 
the  special  patronage  of  His  Beatitude  the 
Patriarch,  and  after  a  strange  diplomatic  enter- 
tainment of  coffee,  cigarettes,  and  a  conserve  of 
rose-leaves,  the  French  writer  was  permitted  to 
visit  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  curious  churches 
in  Jerusalem.  Its  walls  and  all  its  massive  pillars 
are  covered  with  the  lovely  azure  porcelain  which 


PIERRE    LOTI  215 

is  the  triumph  of  ancient  Arabic  art.  The  thrones 
of  the  Patriarchs  are  wrought  in  mosaics  of 
mother-of-pearl  of  an  almost  prehistoric  work- 
manship. From  the  roof  hang  golden  lamps  and 
ostrich- eggs  mounted  in  silver,  while  the  marble 
floors  are  concealed  from  view  under  thick  Turkey 
carpets  of  extreme  antiquity,  faded  into  exquisite 
harmonies  of  yellow,  blue,  and  rose-colour.  It 
was  in  front  of  the  high  altar,  in  the  midst  of  all 
this  profusion  of  superb,  archaic  decoration,  that 
pale  priests,  with  clear-cut  profiles  and  black  silky 
beards,  brought  out  to  M.  Loti  one  by  one  the 
pieces  of  their  incomparable  and  unknown  Treasure, 
— a  missal  presented  nearly  seven  hundred  years 
ago  by  a  Queen  of  Cilicia,  mitres  heavy  with 
emeralds  and  pearls,  tiaras  of  gold  and  rubies, 
fairy-like  textures  of  pale  crimson,  embroidered 
with  lavish  foliage  of  pearl-work,  in  which  the 
flowers  are  emeralds  and  each  fruit  is  a  topaz. 
Then,  by  little  doors  of  mother-of-pearl,  under 
ancient  hangings  of  velvet,  through  sacristies  lined 
with  delicate  porcelain,  the  visitor  was  hurried  from 
chapel  to  chapel,  each  stranger  and  more  archaic 
than  the  last,  while  his  conductor,  as  though 
speaking  of  the  latest  historical  event  which  had 
come  to  his  knowledge,  loudly  lamented  the  cruel- 
ties of  that  sacrilegious  king  Khosroes  II.  and  the 
ravages  he  had  committed  in  Jerusalem. 

This  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  surprises  that 
the  sacred  city  reserves  for  pious  visitors.  It  is  a 
mass  of  decrepit  fragments,  a  dust-heap  of  the  reli- 
gions of  centuries  upon  centuries,  preserving  here 
and  there,  under  the  mask  of  its  affliction  and  its 


2i6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

humiliation,  folded  away  in  its  mysterious  sanctu- 
aries, remnants  of  the  beauty  of  the  past  so  com- 
plete, so  isolated,  and  so  poignant,  that  the  imagin- 
ation finds  it  almost  painful  to  contemplate  them. 
"  Jerusalem,  if  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least 
in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which  belong  unto  thy 
peace  !     But  now  they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes." 

1895. 

La  Galilee 

The  trilogy  of  travel  is  now  concluded  with 
La  Galilee.  The  completed  work  certainly  forms 
the  most  picturesque  description  of  the  Holy  Land 
and  its  surroundings  which  has  yet  been  given  to 
the  world.  We  close  this  third  volume  with  a 
sense  of  having  really  seen  the  places  which  had 
been  a  sort  of  sacred  mystery  to  us  from  earliest 
childhood,  Loti  is  a  master  of  enchantment,  and 
so  cunningly  combines  the  arts  of  harmony  and 
colour  in  writing  that  he  carries  us,  like  St. 
Thomas,  whither  we  would  not.  In  other  words, 
by  the  strange  and  scarcely  analyzable  charm  of 
his  style,  he  bewitches  us  beyond  our  better 
judgment.  But  a  reaction  comes,  and  we  are 
obliged  to  admit  that  in  the  case  of  La  Galilee 
it  has  come  somewhat  soon. 

It  was  only  while  reading  this  third  volume 
that  we  became  conscious  that  Pierre  Loti  was 
doing  rather  a  mechanical  thing.  In  Le  Desert 
we  were  ready  to  believe  that  nothing  but  the 
fascination  of  wild  places  took  him  across  the 
wilderness  and  up  into  that  grotesque   shrine  of 


PIERRE    LOTI  217 

Christianity    that     lurks    among    the    fierce    pin- 
nacles of  Mount  Sinai.      In  Jerusaletny  led    away 
by   the    pathos    of  the    scene    and    the    poignant 
grace  of    the  pilgrim's    reflections,  we    still    per- 
suaded ourselves  to  see  in  him  one  who  withdrew 
from  the  turmoil  of  the  West  that  he  might  wor- 
ship among  the  dead  upon  Mount  Moriah.     But 
in  La  Galilee  the  illusion  disappears.      Loti  crosses 
Palestine,  embarks  upon  the  Sea  of  Gennesaret, 
ascends  Mount   Hermon,  winds    down    into    the 
rose-oasis    of  Damascus,  no  longer  as  the  insou- 
ciant and  aristocratic  wanderer,  "  le  Byron  de  ncs 
jours,"  but  as  a  tourist  like  ourselves,  wrapped  in 
a  burnous,  it    is   true,  and    not    personally  con- 
ducted   by    Messrs.  Cook    &    Sons,  yet    not    the 
less  surely  an  alien,  manufacturing  copy  for    the 
press.     He  is    revealed    as    the    "  special  corres- 
pondent," bound,  every  night,  however  weary  he 
may  be,  to  "  pan  out  "  sufficient  description  to  fill 
a  certain  space  on  the  third  page  of  the  "  Figaro." 
There    is    nothing    dishonourable    in    being    a 
special  correspondent,  nor   is  there    a    journalist 
living  who  might  not  envy  Pierre  Loti  the  sup- 
pleness and  fluid  felicity  of   his  paragraphs.     But 
this  is    not    the  light  in    which  we  have  learned 
to  know  him.     He  has  very  carefully  taught  us 
to    regard    him    as    one    to    whom    literature    is 
indifferent,    who    never    looks    at    a    newspaper, 
whose    impressions    of    men    and    manners    are 
formed  in  lands  whither  his    duties     as   a    sailor 
have  casually  brought  him,  who  writes  of   them 
out  of  the  fullness  of  his  heart,  in  easy  exquisite 
numbers  cast  forth  as  the  bird  casts  its  song.     We 


2i8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

have  had  an  idea  that  Loti  never  looks  at  a 
proof,  that  some  comrade  picks  up  the  loose 
leaves  as  they  flutter  in  the  forecastle,  and 
sends  them  surreptitiously  to  kind  M.  Calmann 
L6vy.  When  he  is  elected  to  the  French 
Academy,  he  is  the  last  to  know  it,  and  wonders, 
as  he  is  rowed  back  from  some  Algerian  har- 
bour, what  his  men  are  shouting  about  on 
board  his  ship.  All  this  is  the  legend  of  Loti, 
and  we  have  nourished  and  cherished  it,  but  it 
will  not  bear  the  fierce  light  that  beats  upon  La 
Galilee.  We  cannot  pretend  any  longer;  we 
cannot  force  ourselves  to  think  of  a  romantic 
pilgrim  of  the  sea,  flung  ashore  at  Aleppo  and 
wandering  vaguely  up  into  the  spurs  of  Carmel. 
Certainly  not  !  This  is  a  Monsieur  Loti  who  is 
travelling  in  the  pay  of  an  enterprising  Parisian 
newspaper,  does  his  work  very  conscientiously,  but 
is  sometimes  not  a  little  bored  with  it. 

The  reader,  who  finds  out.  that  he  has  been 
played  with,  grows  captious  and  unjust.  The 
result  of  discovering  that  Pierre  Loti,  notwith- 
standing the  burnous  and  the  Arab  carpets,  is 
nothing  better  than  a  glorified  commis  voyageur, 
has  made  us  crusty.  We  are  displeased  that  he 
should  travel  so  fast,  and  be  willing  to  scamper 
through  the  whole  of  "  ce  pays  sacr6  de  Galil  "  in 
six  weeks.  It  is  really  no  matter  of  ours  whether 
he  lingers  or  not,  and  yet  we  resent  that  he  should 
push  on  as  monotonously  as  any  of  the  Cookites 
do,  about  whom  he  is  so  sarcastic.  Our  disgust 
invades  us  even  when  we  read  the  famous  descrip- 
tions ;  we  feel,  not  that  they  impressed  themselves 


PIERRE    LOTI  219 

irresistibly  upon  him,  but  that  he  went  out  for  the 
purpose  of  making  them,  and  made  them  as  fast 
as  he  could.  He  becomes,  to  our  affronted  fancy, 
a  sort  of  huge  and  infinitely  elaborate  photographic 
machine,  making  exquisite  kodaks  as  his  guides 
hurry  him  along.  All  this,  we  admit,  is  very 
unfair,  but  it  exemplifies  the  danger  of  admitting 
the  public  too  much  into  the  works  of  the  musical 
box.  We  find  ourselves  glancing  back  at  our  old 
favourites  with  horrid  new  suspicions.  Was  he 
paid  so  much  a  line  to  make  love  to  his  plaintive 
bride  in  Tahiti  ?  Did  some  newspaper  engage 
him  to  pursue  Aziyad^  so  madly  through  the  length 
and  breadth  of  Stamboul  ?  Was  the  Press  kept 
waiting  while  Tante  Claire  was  dying  ?  These  are 
hideous  questions,  and  we  thrust  them  from  us, 
but  Pierre  Loti  should  really  be  made  to  realise 
that  the  romantic  attachment  which  his  readers 
bear  him  is  a  tender  plant.  He  holds  them 
because  he  is  so  wayworn  and  desolate,  but  if  he 
read  his  Shelley  he  would  learn  that  "  desolation 
is  a  delicate  thing." 

We  would  not  be  supposed  to  deny  that  La 
Galilee  is  full  of  pages  which  Loti  only  could  write, 
pictures  which  he  alone  could  paint.  Here  is  a 
marvellous  vignette  of  that  sombre  and  sepulchral 
city  of  Nablous,  so  rarely  visited  by  Christians,  so 
isolated  in  its  notorious  bigotry,  which  an  outrage 
on  a  small  Protestant  mission  has  just  brought 
prominently  before  us.  Here  is  Nazareth  in 
twilight,  with  the  moon  flooding  the  boundless  gulf 
of  grasses  that  stretch  from  its  rocky  feet.  Very 
impressive    is    the   picture    of    the    dead    city    of 


220  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Tiberias,  along  whose  solemn  and  deserted  quays, 
once  thronged  with  shipping,  no  vessel  has  been 
moored  for  centuries,  looking  down  at  the  reflection 
of  its  crenelated  walls  in  the  tideless  waters  of 
Gennesaret.  Beautiful,  too,  and  "  du  meilleur  Loti  " 
is  the  description  of  the  descent  from  the  grey 
terraces  of  Hermon,  to  that  miraculous  oasis  in 
the  Idumean  desert  where  Damascus  lifts  its  rose- 
coloured  minarets  and  domes  out  of  pale-green 
orchards  of  poplars  and  pomegranates,  beneath 
whose  boughs  the  rivulets  run  sparkling  over  a 
carpet  of  iris  and  anemone.  It  is  in  forming 
impressions  such  as  these,  where  no  detail  escapes 
the  narrator's  eye,  and  not  a  word  is  said  too 
little  or  too  much,  that  Pierre  Loti  asserts  that 
supremacy  as  a  master  of  description  which  no 
carelessness  and  no  inconsistency  can  deprive  him 
of.  He  has  little  pretension  to  being  an  intellectual 
force  in  literature,  but  as  a  proficient  in  this 
species  of  sensuous  legerdemain  he  has  had  no 
rival,  and  is  not  likely  soon  to  be  surpassed. 

1896. 


Figures  et  Choses  qui  passaient 

It  has  long  been  the  custom  of  Pierre  Loti  to 
gather  together  at  intervals  those  short  pieces  of 
his  prose  which  have  not  found  their  place  in  any 
consecutive  fiction  or  record  of  travel.  In  the 
case  of  most  authors,  even  of  the  better  class, 
such  chips  from  the  workshop  would  excite  but  a 
very  languid  interest,  or  might  be  judged  wholly 


PIERRE    LOTI  221 

impertinent.  All  that  Loti  does,  however,  on 
whatever  scale,  is  done  with  so  much  care  and  is 
so  characteristic  of  him,  that  his  admirers  find 
some  of  their  richest  feasts  in  these  his  baskets  of 
broken  meat.  The  genuine  Lotist  is  a  fanatic, 
who  can  give  no  other  reason  for  the  faith  that 
is  in  him  than  this,  that  the  mere  voice  of  this 
particular  writer  is  an  irresistible  enchantment. 
It  is  not  the  story,  or  the  chain  of  valuable 
thoughts,  or  the  important  information  supplied 
by  Pierre  Loti  that  enthrals  his  admirers.  It  is 
the  music  of  the  voice,  the  incomparable  magic  of 
the  mode  in  which  the  mournful,  sensuous,  exquisite 
observations  are  delivered.  He  is  a  Pied  Piper, 
and  as  for  his  admirers,  poor  rats,  as  he  pipes, 
they  follow,  follow.  He  who  writes  these  lines  is 
always  among  the  bewitched. 

The  convinced  Lotist,  then,  will  not  be  dis- 
couraged to  hear  that  Figures  et  Choses  qui  passaientj 
which  is  the  twentieth  tune  (or  volume)  which  this 
piper  has  played  to  us,  is  made  up  entirely  of  bits 
and  airs  that  seem  to  have  lost  their  way  from 
other  works.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  amuse  and 
stimulate  him  to  notice  that  Passage  cPEnfant 
suggests  a  lost  chapter  of  Le  Livre  de  la  Pitie  et  de 
la  Mott ;  that  Instant  de  Recueillement  reads  like  a 
rejected  preface  to  the  novel  called  Ramuntcho ; 
that  Passage  de  Sultan  is  a  sort  of  appendix  to 
Fantome  d' Orient ;  and  that  Passage  de  Carmencita 
forms  a  quite  unexpected  prelude  to  Le  Mariage  de 
Loti.  But  this  at  least  may  be  said,  that  this  beau 
gahier  of  literature,  the  fantastic  and  wayward 
sailor    so    signally    unlike    the    kind    of    mariner 


222  FRENCH    PROFILES 

(with  a  pigtail,  and  hitching  up  white  ducks), 
who  still  continues  to  be  our  haunting  mari- 
time convention — this  complicated  and  morbid 
Alcade  de  la  Mer  who  walks  so  uncompromis- 
ingly the  quarter-deck  of  the  French  Academy, 
has  never  published  a  book  which  more  tyranni- 
cally presupposes  an  acquaintance  with  all  his 
previous  works.  But  he  knows  our  frailty  ;  and 
I  will  make  a  confession  which  may  go  to  the 
heart  of  other  Lotists.  There  is  one  piece  in 
Figures  et  Choses  which  certainly  ought  never  to 
have  been  written.  I  hope  to  screw  up  my 
courage,  presently,  to  reprove  it  by  name  ;  it  is 
horrible,  unseemly.  But  I  have  read  every  word 
of  it,  slowly,  with  gusto,  as  we  read  our  Loti, 
balancing  the  sentences,  drawing  the  phrases  over 
the  palate.  It  is  a  vice,  this  Lotism  ;  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  there  ought  not  to  be  a  society  to  put 
it  down.  Yet  if  I  were  persuaded  to  sign  a  pledge 
never  to  read  another  page  of  Loti,  I  know  that 
I  should  immediately  break  it. 

Yet  Loti  does  everything  which,  according  to 
the  rules,  he  should  not  do.  Passage  d'Enfanty 
with  which  this  volume  opens,  is  a  study  such  as 
no  Englishman  can  conceive  himself  proposing  to 
write.  The  author  is  in  Paris,  about  some  official 
business.  He  receives  a  letter  and  a  telegram  to 
say  that  a  little  boy  of  two  years  old,  the  child  of 
a  pair  of  his  domestic  servants  at  Rochefort,  has 
suddenly  died  of  croup.  The  resulting  emotion 
is  so  capricious,  so  intimate,  so  poignant,  that  one 
would  hardly  be  able  to  tell  it,  were  it  one's  own 
experience,  to  one's  most  familiar  friend.     Pierre 


PIERRE    LOTI  223 

Loti  tells  it  to  the  world  in  full  detail,  without 
concealment  of  names  or  places  or  conditions,  and 
with  an  absolute  perfection  of  narrative.  He 
weaves  it  into  a  sort  of  diatribe  against  "  the  stupid 
cruelty  of  death."  He  flies  back  to  his  home,  he 
visits  the  little  newly-made  grave,  he  mingles  his 
tears  with  those  of  the  child's  father,  he  recalls  a 
score  of  pretty  tricks  and  babblings.  There  seems 
to  us  English  people  a  certain  lack  here  of  decent 
proportion  or  self-command.  Yet  these  are  local 
matters,  and  the  standard  of  taste  varies  so  much 
at  different  times  in  different  countries  that  one 
hesitates  to  dogmatise.  And  besides,  the  whole 
thing  is  steeped  in  that  distinguished  melancholy 
beauty  which  redeems  and  explains  everything. 

A  large  section  of  this  new  volume  deals  with 
the  customs  and  landscape  of  that  extreme  corner 
of  south-western  France  which  the  author  has 
made  his  own  during  the  years  in  which  he  has 
been  stationed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Bidassoa.  All 
these  studies  of  the  "  Euskal-Erria,"  the  primitive 
Basque  Country,  are  instinct  with  the  most  grace- 
ful qualities  of  Pierre  Loti's  spirit.  He  has  an 
exquisite  instinct  for  the  preservation  of  whatever 
is  antique  and  beautiful,  a  superstitious  conser- 
vatism pushed  almost  to  an  affectation.  As  he 
grows  older,  this  characteristic  increases  with  him. 
He  has  become  an  impassioned  admirer  of  cathe- 
drals ;  he  is  moved,  almost  to  an  act  of  worship, 
by  sumptuous  and  complicated  churches ;  he  bows 
a  dubiously  adoring  knee  at  Loyola  and  at  Burgos. 
He  is  very  eager  to  take  part  in  processions,  he  is 
active  among  crowds   of  penitents,  he  omits  no 


224  FRENCH    PROFILES 

item  in  the  sensual  parts  of  ritual,  and  is  swayed 
almost  to  intoxication  on  the  ebb  and  flood  of 
mysterious  and  archaic  incantations.  The  reader 
of  his  Jerusalem  will  recall  how  earnestly  and 
how  vainly  Pierre  Loti  sought  for  a  religious  idea, 
or  a  genuine  inspiration  of  any  spiritual  kind, 
among  the  shrines  and  waters  of  Palestine.  Once 
more  this  unction  is  denied  him.  Doomed  for 
ever  to  deal  with  the  external  side  of  things,  the 
exquisite  envelope  of  life,  Loti,  as  time  goes  by, 
seems  knocking  with  a  more  and  more  hope- 
less agitation  at  the  door  of  the  mystical  world. 
But  that  which  is  revealed  to  children  will  never 
be  exposed  to  him.  It  ought  to  be  enough  for 
Loti  that  he  surpasses  all  the  rest  of  his  fellow- 
men  in  the  perfection  of  his  tactile  apparatus. 
That  which  is  neither  to  be  seen,  nor  touched, 
nor  smelled,  nor  heard,  lies  outside  his  province. 

But,  within  his  province,  what  a  magician  he 
is  !  Vacances  de  Pdques,  apparently  a  cancelled 
chapter  from  Le  Roman  d'un  Enfant,  tells  us  how 
a  certain  Easter  holiday  was  spent  in  Loti's  child- 
hood, and  how  the  days  flew  one  after  another, 
in  the  same  cold  rain,  under  the  same  black  sky. 
The  subject,  mainly  dealing  with  a  neglected 
imposition  and  the  dilatory  labours  of  an  idle 
schoolboy,  seems  as  unpromising  as  possible,  but 
the  author's  skill  redeems  it,  and  this  little  essay 
contains  one  page  on  the  excessive  colour  of 
bright  flowers  under  a  grey  or  broken  sky  which 
ranks  among  the  best  that  he  has  written.  Pierre 
Loti  is  always  excellent  on  this  subject ;  one  re- 
collects the  tiny  blossoms  that  enamelled  the  floor 


PIERRE    LOTI  225 

of  his  tent  in  Au  Maroc.  In  the  present  volume, 
while  he  is  waiting  on  the  hill-side  to  join  the 
procession  winding  far  up  the  Pyrenees  to  Ron- 
cevaux,  he  notes  the  long  rosy  spindles  of  the 
foxgloves,  lashed  with  rain,  the  laden  campanulas, 
the  astonishing  and  almost  grotesque  saxifrages 
torn  and  ravaged  by  the  hail.  And  here  and 
there  a  monotonous  flush  of  red  flowers — rosy 
moss-campions,  rosy  geraniums,  rosy  mallows — 
and  from  the  broken  stalks  the  petals  flung  in  pink 
ribands  across  the  delicate  deep  green  mosses. 

An  example  of  the  peculiar  subtlety  of  Loti's 
symbolism  is  afforded  by  the  curious  little  study 
here  called  Papillon  de  Mite.  In  that  corner  of 
his  house  in  Rochefort  of  which  he  has  often  told 
us,  where  all  the  treasures  are  stored  up  that  he 
has  brought  home  from  his  travels,  the  author 
watches  a  clothes-moth  disengage  itself  from  a 
splendid  Chinese  robe  of  red  velvet,  and  dance  in 
a  sunbeam.  Rapidly,  rapidly,  in  the  delirium  of 
existence,  this  atom  waves  its  wings  of  silken  dust, 
describing  its  little  gay,  fantastic  curves  of  flight. 
Loti  strikes  it  carelessly  to  the  ground,  and  then 
begins  to  wonder  what  it  is  that  it  reminds  him 
of.  Where  had  he  once  seen  before  in  his  life 
something  "  papillonnement  gris  pareil "  which 
had  caused  him  a  like  but  a  less  transient  melan- 
choly ?  And  he  recollects — it  was  long  ago,  at 
Constantinople,  on  the  wooden  bridge  that  con- 
nects Stamboul  and  Pera.  A  woman  who  had 
lost  both  her  legs  was  begging,  while  a  little,  grey, 
impassive  child,  with  shrivelled  hands,  lay  at  her 
side.      Presently  the  mother  called  the  child  to 

P 


226  FRENCH   PROFILES 

come  and  have  its  small  garment  put  on,  when  all 
at  once  it  leaped  from  her  hands  and  escaped, 
dancing  about  in  the  cold  wind,  and  flapping  the 
sleeves  of  its  burnous-like  wings.  And  it  was  of 
this  poor  child,  soon  exhausted,  soon  grey  and 
immobile  again,  but  for  an  instant  intoxicated  with 
the  simple  ecstasy  of  existence  and  motion,  that 
Loti  was  reminded  by  the  curves  and  flutterings 
of  the  clothes-moth.  This  is  a  wonderfully 
characteristic  example  of  the  methods  of  the 
author,  of  his  refined  sensibility,  vivid  memory 
for  details,  and  fondness  for  poignant  and  subtle 
impressions  of  association. 

In  Profanation — the  study  which  I  have  dared 
to  speak  of  with  reprobation  —  I  feel  sure  that 
he  carries  too  far  his  theory  that  we  may  say  any- 
thing if  only  we  say  it  exquisitely  enough  and  in 
the  interests  of  pity.  Loti's  ideas  of  "  taste,"  of 
reticence,  are  not  ours  ;  he  does  not  address  an 
Anglo-Saxon  audience.  But  the  cases  in  which 
he  offends  against  even  our  conventions  are  very 
few  in  Figures  et  Choses.  I  have  left  myself  no 
space  to  speak  of  the  vivid  pictures  of  sports 
among  the  primeval  Basque  population — studies, 
one  might  conjecture  them  to  be,  for  the  book 
that  afterwards  became  Ramuntcho.  I  can  but 
refer,  with  strong  commendation,  to  the  amazing 
description  of  the  sacred  dance  of  the  Souletins. 
The  last  one  hundred  pages  of  this  enchanting 
volume  are  occupied  by  Trois  Journees  de  Guerre, 
an  exceedingly  minute  and  picturesque  report  of 
the  storming  of  the  city  of  Hu6  in  the  Annam 
War  of  1883.     Unless  I  am  mistaken,  these  notes 


PIERRE    LOTI  227 

were  originally  sent  home  to  some  Parisian  news- 
paper, where  their  publication  gave  great  offence 
at  the  French  Admiralty  or  War  Office.  Why  it 
should  do  so,  it  is  not  easy  after  fifteen  years  of 
suppression  to  conceive.  These  Trots  Joumees  de 
Guerre  en  Atinam  form  one  of  the  most  admirably 
solid  of  all  Pierre  Loti's  minor  writings.  They 
ought  to  be  read  in  conjunction  with  the  book 
called  Propos  d'ExiL 

1897. 

Ramuntcho 

In  Ramuntcho  Pierre  Loti  returns  to  the  class 
of  work  which  originally  made  him  famous.  It  is 
eleven  years  since  he  published  Pecheur  d'Islande, 
the  latest  of  his  genuine  novels,  for  we  refuse  to 
include  among  these  the  distressing  sketch  called 
Matelot.  During  this  decade  he  has  written  much, 
and  some  of  it,  such  as  Fantome  d' Orient,  has  taken 
a  form  half-way  between  fact  and  fiction  ;  the  rest 
has  been  purely  descriptive,  culminating,  or  rather 
going  to  seed,  in  the  rather  empty  volume  called 
La  Galilee.  It  is  probable  that  Loti — who  for 
a  person  who  never  reads  anything  (as  he  told  the 
French  Academy)  is  remarkably  shrewd  in  feeling 
the  pulse  of  literature — has  become  conscious  that 
he  must  recover  some  lost  steps  of  his  position. 
After  a  considerable  pause,  then,  he  comes  forward 
with  a  book  which  is  not  only  one  of  the  most 
attractive  that  he  has  ever  written,  but  belongs  to 
the  class  which  the  public  particularly  enjoys.  In 
Ramuntcho  the  tribe  of  the  Lotists  recover  the  Loti 


228  FRENCH    PROFILES 

that  they  like  best,  the  Loti  of  Pecheur  d'hlande 
and  Le  Roman  d'un  Spahi.  Such  a  book  as  this, 
very  carefully  written  in  his  best  style  by  the 
most  sensitive  writer  now  living,  is  an  event,  and 
one  on  which  to  congratulate  ourselves. 

The  scene  of  Ramuntcho  is  the  extreme  south- 
western corner  of  France,  between  the  Bay  of 
Biscay  and  the  Pyrenees,  where  the  remnants 
of  an  ancient  race  speak  their  mysterious  and 
unrelated  Basque  language,  and  live  a  life  apart 
from  the  interests  and  habits  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen.  We  are  reminded  of  the  Breton 
scenes  in  Mon  Frere  Yves,  with  their  flashes  of 
sunshine  breaking  through  long  spells  of  rain  and 
mist ;  and  Ramuntcho,  the  hero  of  the  book,  is, 
indeed,  a  sort  of  Yves — less  intelligent,  less 
developed,  carried  less  far  into  manhood,  but  with 
the  same  dumb  self-reliance,  the  same  unadulter- 
ated physical  force,  the  same  pathetic  resignation 
as  the  scion  of  a  wasting,  isolated  race.  The 
landscape  of  the  Basque  country  interpenetrates 
the  whole  fabric  of  the  story  ;  we  never  escape 
from  it  for  a  moment.  We  move  among  grey 
hamlets,  infinitely  old,  which  are  perched  among 
great  chestnuts,  high  up  upon  the  terraces  of 
mountain  sides.  On  one  hand  the  Bay  of  Biscay, 
with  its  troubled  waters,  never  ceases  to  moan  ; 
on  the  other,  the  tumultuous  labyrinth  of  the 
Pyrenees,  with  its  sinuous  paths  and  winding 
streams,  stretches  interminably,  obscure  and  threat- 
ening. In  each  of  the  sparse  mountain  villages 
two  monuments  of  great  antiquity  hold  the  local 
life    together ;     one    is    the   massive   and    archaic 


PIERRE    LOTI  229 

church,  often  as  soHd  as  a  fortress  ;  the  other  is 
the  fives-court,  in  which  for  generations  past  all 
the  young  men  of  the  parish  have  tempered  their 
muscles  of  steel,  and  become  adepts  in  this  national 
game  of  la  pelote. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  way  in  which 
the  imagination  of  M.  Loti  works  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  guessing  the  line  he  takes  with  such  a 
landscape  as  this.  Its  inaccessibility  to  modern 
innovations,  its  secular  decay,  the  gravity  and 
dignity  of  its  inhabitants,  their  poverty  and  in- 
dependence, their  respect  for  physical  beauty,  their 
hardy  activity — all  these  are  qualities  naturally 
fascinating  to  M.  Loti,  and  he  adds  to  a  com- 
bination of  these  the  peculiar  melancholy,  the 
sense  of  the  inexorable  "  fallings  from  us,  vanish- 
ings,"  of  which  he  is  so  singular  a  master.  Never 
has  he  been  more  pathetic,  more  deeply  plunged 
in  the  consciousness  that,  as  the  Persian  poet 
puts  it, 

"  The  Stars  are  setting,  and  the  Caravan 
Starts  for  the  Dawn  of  Nothing." 

Never  has  he  expended  a  greater  wealth  of  melody 
and  colour,  never  fused  his  effects  into  tones  of 
rarer  delicacy,  than  in  this  tale  of  smuggling, 
/>^/o/^-playing  and  courtship  in  a  mountain  village 
of  the  Basques. 

No  injustice  is  done  to  the  author  of  such  a 
novel  as  this  by  giving  an  outline  of  his  plot,  for 
the  mere  story  is  primitive  and  simple  ;  it  is  in 
the  telling  that  the  art  consists.  The  hamlet  of 
Etchezar    is    the    home    of    Franchita,   a    lonely 


230  FRENCH    PROFILES 

woman,  who,  with  one  little  son,  Raymond  or 
(in  Basque)  Ramuntcho,  stole  back  thither  some 
fifteen  years  before  the  tale  opens,  having  been 
deserted  by  the  man,  an  unnamed  person  of 
quality  from  Paris,  whose  mistress  she  had  been 
in  Biarritz.  Ramuntcho  grows  up  with  a  mixed 
temperament  ;  partly  he  is  a  Basque,  stolid,  im- 
penetrable, intensely  local,  but  partly  also  he  is 
conscious  of  cosmopolitan  instincts,  faint  blasts  of 
longing,  like  those  which  come  to  Arne  in  Bjorn- 
son's  beautiful  story,  for  the  world  outside,  the 
au-dela,  or,  as  Ramuntcho  vaguely  puts  it,  "  les 
choses  d'ailleursy  In  the  village  of  Etch^zar, 
which  mainly  supports  itself  by  smuggling,  the 
widow  Dolores  is  a  prominent  personage,  with 
her  intensely  respectable  past,  her  store  of  money, 
and  the  two  beautiful  children,  her  son  Arrochkoa 
and  her  daughter  Gracieuse.  But  she  hates  and 
despises  the  unfortunate  Franchita,  and  scorns 
Ramuntcho.  The  latter  youth,  arriving  at  the 
maturity  of  seventeen  years,  and  in  close  amity 
with  Arrochkoa,  is  admitted  into  the  secret  fellow- 
ship of  a  most  desperate  and  successful  band  of 
smugglers,  who,  under  the  guidance  of  Itchoua,  a 
much  older  man,  harry  the  frontier  of  Spain. 

The  excursions  of  the  smugglers  give  M.  Loti 
opportunities  for  his  matchless  power  in  visual 
writing.  The  great  scene  in  which,  under  the 
intoxication  of  the  magical  south  wind,  the  band 
of  desperados  cross  the  shining  estuary  of  the 
Bidassoa  at  sunrise,  is  superb.  But  still  more 
striking  are  the  pictures  of  home  life  in  the  village, 
the  ceremonies  and  entertainments  on  All  Saints 


PIERRE    LOTI  231 

Day,  scenes  the  theatres  of  which  are  the  church 
and  the  pehfe-couri.  In  the  national  game — the 
Basque  fives  in  excelsis — Ramuntcho  becomes,  as 
he  approaches  the  age  of  eighteen,  extremely 
skilful  ;  he  and  Arrochkoa,  indeed,  are  the  two 
champion  players  of  the  whole  district,  and  are 
thus  drawn  into  closer  mutual  friendship.  And 
under  the  smile  with  which  Gracieuse  rewards  his 
prowess  at  the  game,  an  old  affection  for  the  sister 
of  his  friend  is  blown  into  a  passion,  which  is 
returned,  and  would  be  avowed,  but  for  the 
jealousy  of  old  Dolores.  The  lovers  are  driven  to 
innocent  clandestine  meetings  on  the  stone  bench 
under  Dolores'  house,  or,  upon  moonlight  nights, 
within  the  dense  shadow  of  the  chestnut  trees.  If 
there  is  any  theme  in  which  M.  Loti  delights,  and 
to  the  delineation  of  which  he  brings  his  most 
delicate  and  sympathetic  gifts,  it  is  the  progress  of 
the  passion  of  love  in  adolescence.  Ramuntcho 
comes  to  Gracieuse  from  his  perilous  skirmishings 
with  the  Spanish  Custom-house  officers,  and  from 
long  vigils  which  have  brought  him  close  to  the 
very  pulse  of  nature.  I  cannot  refrain  from 
quoting,  in  this  connexion,  one  passage  intimately 
characteristic  of  its  author  : — 

"Voici  venir  les  longs  cr^puscules  pales  de 
juin.  .  .  .  Pour  Ramuntcho,  c'est  I'^poque  ou  la 
contrebande  devient  un  metier  presque  sans  peine, 
avec  des  heures  charmantes :  marcher  vers  les 
sommets,  a  travers  les  nuages  printaniers  ;  franchir 
les  ravins,  errer  dans  des  regions  de  sources  et  de 
figuiers  sauvages  ;  dormir,  pour  attendre  I'heure 
convenue  avec  les  carabiniers  complices,  sur  des 


232  FRENCH    PROFILES 

tapis  de  menthes  et  d'oeillets.  La  bonne  senteur 
des  plantes  impr^gnait  ses  habits,  sa  veste  jamais 
mise  qui  ne  lui  servait  que  d'oreiller  ou  de 
couverture ;  et  Gracieuse  quelquefois  lui  disait  le 
soir  :  '  Je  sais  la  contrebande  que  vous  avez  faite 
la  nuit  derni^re,  car  tu  sens  les  menthes  de  la 
montagne  au-dessus  de  Mendiazpi,'  ou  bien  :  '  Tu 
sens  les  absinthes  du  marais  de  Subernoa.' " 

This  happy  condition  of  things  is  brought  to  an 
end  by  the  necessity  in  which  Ramuntcho  finds 
himself  of  opting  for  Spanish  or  French  citizen- 
ship. If  he  chooses  the  latter,  he  must  prepare 
for  three  years'  absence  on  military  duty  before  he 
can  marry  Gracieuse.  He  determines,  however, 
that  to  accept  his  fate  is  the  manly  thing  to  do  ; 
but  hardly  has  he  so  decided,  when  an  unexpected 
letter  comes  from  an  uncle  Ignacio,  in  Uruguay, 
offering  to  adopt  him  if  he  will  go  out  to  America. 
The  proposal  comes  too  late,  and  he  starts  for  his 
military  service.  Then  the  tragedy  begins.  He 
returns  after  his  three  years'  absence  to  find  his 
mother  dying,  and  his  Gracieuse  vanished.  The 
bitter  old  Dolores,  after  vainly  thrusting  a  rich 
suitor  upon  her  daughter,  has  driven  her  to  take 
the  veil,  and  she  is  now  a  nun  in  a  little  remote 
mountain-convent  close  to  the  Spanish  frontier. 
Ramuntcho  takes  up  the  old  wild  life  as  a  smuggler, 
but  he  cannot  get  the  idea  of  Gracieuse  out  of 
his  mind  ;  and  at  last,  encouraged  by  Arrochkoa, 
he  determines  to  make  a  raid  on  the  convent, 
snatch  Gracieuse  from  her  devotions,  and  fly  with 
her  to  Argentina.  The  two  young  men  make 
an  elaborate  plan  for  a  nocturnal  rape    of   their 


PIERRE    LOTI  233 

Iberian  Sabine.  But  when  they  arrive  at  the 
peaceful,  noiseless  nunnery,  and  are  hospitably 
received  by  the  holy  women,  their  ardour  dies 
away.  Gracieuse  gives  no  sign  of  any  wish  to  fly ; 
she  merely  says,  when  she  hears  that  Ramuntcho 
is  leaving  the  country,  that  they  will  all  pray  the 
Virgin  that  he  may  have  a  happy  voyage.  Intimi- 
dated by  the  sanctity  of  the  life  which  it  seemed 
so  easy  to  break  into  as  they  talked  about  it  late 
at  nights  over  their  chacoli,  but  which  now  seems 
impregnable,  the  lads  go  peaceably  away,  Arroch- 
koa  sullenly  to  his  nocturnal  foray  on  the  frontier, 
Ramuntcho  with  a  broken  heart  to  Bordeaux  and 
Buenos  Ayres.  And  so,  with  that  tribute  to  the 
mutability  of  fortune  which  Loti  loves,  and 
with  a  touch  of  positive  pietism  which  we  meet 
with  in  his  work  almost  for  the  first  time — there 
was  a  hint  of  it  m  Jerusalem — this  beautiful  and 
melancholy  book  closes.  We  feel  as  we  put  down 
the  volume  more  convinced  than  ever  of  the 
unique  character  of  its  author's  talent,  so  evasive 
and  limited,  and  yet  within  its  own  boundaries  of 
so  exquisite  a  perfection.  It  is  a  talent  in  which 
intellect  has  no  part,  but  in  which  melody  and 
perfume  and  colour  combine  with  extraordinary 
vivacity  to  produce  an  impression  of  extreme  and 
perhaps  not  quite  healthy  sensibility. 

1897. 


234  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Les  Derniers  Jours  de  Pekin. 

It  was  a  fortunate  chance  which  sent  to  China, 
in  the  late  autumn  of  1900,  the  man  in  whom, 
perhaps  more  dehcately  than  in  any  other  Hving 
person,  are  combined  the  gifts  of  the  seeing  eye 
and  the  expressive  pen.  The  result  is  a  book 
which,  so  far  as  mere  visual  presentment  goes, 
may  safely  be  said  to  outweigh  the  whole  bulk  of 
what  else  was  sent  home  from  the  extreme  East, 
in  letters  and  articles  to  every  part  of  the  world, 
during  that  terrible  period  of  storm  and  stress. 
Pierre  Loti  arrived  when  the  fighting  was  over, 
when  the  Imperial  family  had  tied,  and  when  the 
mysteries  of  the  hitherto  inviolable  capital  of  China 
had  just  first  been  opened  to  the  Powers.  He 
reaped  the  earliest  harvest  of  strange  and  magni- 
ficent impressions,  and  he  saw,  with  that  incom- 
parably clear  vision  of  his,  what  no  European  had 
seen  till  then,  and  much  that  no  human  being  will 
ever  see  again.  Moreover,  after  a  long  rest,  the 
great  artist,  who  had  seemed  in  Jerusalem^  and  still 
more  in  La  Galilee,  to  have  tired  his  pen  a  little, 
and  to  have  lost  something  of  his  firm  clairvoyance, 
has  enjoyed  a  rest  of  several  years.  His  style 
proclaims  the  advantage  of  this  reserve.  Loti  is 
entirely  himself  again ;  never  before,  not  even  in 
the  matchless  Fleurs  d'Exil,  has  he  presented  his 
talent  in  a  form  more  evenly  brilliant,  more  splen- 
didly characteristic  in  its  rich  simplicity,  than  in 
Les  Derniers  Jours  de  Pekin. 

Pierre  Loti  arrived  at  Ning-Hai,  on  the  Yellow 
Sea,  in  a  French  man-of-war,  on  October  3,  and  a 


PIERRE    LOTI  235 

week  later  he  started  on  a  mission  to  Peking.  His 
journey  thither  was  marked  by  no  very  striking 
events,  except  his  passage  through  the  vast  and 
deserted  city  of  Tong-Tcheou,  full  of  silence  and 
corpses,  and  paved  with  broken  porcelain.  The 
horrors  of  this  place  might  fill  a  niche  in  some 
eastern  Inferno  ;  and  they  offer  Loti  his  first  oppor- 
tunity to  exercise  in  China  his  marvellous  gift  for 
the  reproduction  of  phenomena.  We  pass  with 
him  under  the  black  and  gigantic  ramparts  of 
Tong-Tcheou,  and  thread  its  dreadful  streets  under 
the  harsh  and  penetrating  light  of  Chinese  autumn. 
The  coldness,  the  dark  colour,  the  awful  silence, 
the  importunate  and  crushing  odour  of  death,  these 
he  renders  as  only  a  master  can.  The  little  party 
pursues  its  course,  and  on  October  18,  quite  sud- 
denly, in  a  grim  solitude,  where  nothing  had  been 
visible  a  few  seconds  before,  a  huge  crenelated 
rampart  hangs  high  above  their  heads,  the  discon- 
certing and  grimacing  outer  wall  of  the  Tartar  city 
of  Peking. 

We  cannot  follow  the  author  through  his  intel- 
lectual adventures,  on  a  scene  the  most  mysterious 
and  the  most  tragic  in  the  modern  world,  where, 
it  is  true,  the  agony  of  movement  had  ceased,  but 
where,  in  the  suspense  and  hush,  the  mental  ex- 
citement was  perhaps  even  greater  than  it  had  been 
during  the  siege.  Everywhere  was  brooding  the 
evidence  of  massacre,  everywhere  the  horror  of 
catastrophe,  in  what  had  so  lately  been  the  most 
magnificent  city  in  the  world,  and  what  was  now 
merely  the  most  decrepit.  The  author,  by  virtue 
of  his  errand  and  his  fame,  had  the  extreme  good 


236  FRENCH    PROFILES 

fortune  to  be  passed  from  the  ruined  French  Em- 
bassy, in  and  in,  through  the  Yellow  City  and  the 
Pink  City,  to  the  very  Holy  of  Holies,  the  ultimate 
and  mysterious  shrine,  never  before  exhibited  or 
even  described  to  a  Western  eye,  where,  above  the 
fabulous  Lake  of  Lotus,  the  Empress  and  the  Em- 
peror had  their  group  of  secluded  palaces.  He 
was  lodged  in  a  gallery,  walled  entirely  with  glass 
and  rice-paper,  where  marvellous  ebony  sculptures 
dropped  in  lacework  from  the  ceiling,  and  where 
Imperial  golden-yellow  carpets,  incredibly  soft  and 
sumptuous,  rolled  their  dragons  along  the  floor. 
Here  the  Empress,  until  a  month  or  two  before, 
had  played  the  goddess  among  her  great  ladies  in 
an  indolent  magnificence  of  flowers  and  satins  and 
music. 

But,  perhaps,  more  incalculable  still  was  the 
little  dark  chamber,  furnished  with  a  deep  austerity 
of  taste,  and  faintly  pervaded  with  an  odour  of  tea, 
of  withered  roses  and  of  old  silks,  where,  on  a  low 
bed,  the  dark  blue  coverlid  thrown  hastily  aside, 
no  change  had  been  made  since  the  pale  and  timid 
Emperor,  whose  innermost  lair  this  was,  had  risen, 
in  a  paroxysm  of  terror,  to  fly  for  his  life  into  the 
darkness,  into  the  unknown  spaces,  guided  only 
by  that  fierce  and  wonderful  woman,  of  whose  per- 
sonal greatness  everything  that  reaches  us  through 
the  dimness  of  report  merely  seems  to  intensify 
our  perception. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  do  more  than  indicate 
the  fullness  of  the  descriptive  passages  which 
throng  this  volume.  All  the  scenes,  by  day  and 
night,    in    the    Pink   City,   with   its  ramparts   the 


PIERRE    LOTI  237 

colour  of  dried  blood  ;  all  the  pictures  of  temples 
and  pagodas,  half-lost  in  groves  of  immemorial 
cedars,  and  stained,  in  their  exquisite  and  precious 
beauty,  by  dust,  and  corruption,  and  neglect ;  all 
the  visits  to  sinister  mandarins  ;  all  the  chiaroscuro 
of  night,  scented  and  twinkling,  falling  upon  this 
foul  and  fairylike  nightmare — all  must  be  read  in 
the  author's  own  language.  How  concise  that  is, 
how  unaffected,  how  competent  to  transfer  to  us 
the  image  strongly  imprinted  upon  Loti's  own 
delicately  ductile  vision,  one  extract  must  suffice 
to  exemplify.  It  is  the  conclusion  of  the  account 
he  gives  of  his  visit  to  the  triple  Temple  of  the 
Lamas,  where  all  had  been  in  contrast,  in  its  colour 
of  ochre  and  rust,  with  the  rose-colour  and  golden 
yellow  of  purely  Chinese  state  ornament : — 

"  Ce  dernier  temple — le  plus  caduc  peut-etre,  le 
plus  dejete,  et  le  plus  vermoulu — ne  presente  que 
la  r6p6tition  obs^dante  des  deux  autres — sauf 
pourtant  I'idole  du  centre  qui,  au  lieu  d'etre  assise 
et  de  taille  humaine,  surgit  debout,  geante,  im- 
pr^vue  et  presque  effroyable.  Les  plafonds  d'or, 
coup6s  pour  la  laisser  passer,  lui  arrivent  a  mi- 
jambe,  et  elle  monte  toute  droite  sous  une  espece 
de  clocher  dore,  qui  la  tient  par  trop  ^troitement 
emboit^e.  Pour  voir  sa  visage,  il  faut  s'approcher 
tout  contre  les  autels,  et  lever  la  tete  au  milieu  des 
brule-parfums  et  des  rigides  fleurs  ;  on  dirait  alors 
une  momie  de  Titan  erig^e  dans  sa  gaine,  et  son 
regard  baiss^,  au  premier  abord,  cause  quelque 
crainte.  Mais,  en  la  fixant,  on  subit  d'elle  un 
mal^fice  plutot  charmeur  ;  on  se  sent  hypnotist 
et  retenu  la  par  son  sourire,  qui  tombe  d'en  haul 


238  FRENCH    PROFILES 

si  d^tache  et  si  tranquille,  sur  tout  son  entourage 
de  splendeur  expirante,  d'or,  et  de  poussiere,  de 
froid,  de  crepuscule,  de  mines,  et  de  silence." 

Pierre  Loti's  brief  visit  was  paid  just  when  the 
tide  was  turning.  Even  while  he  stayed  in  his 
fairy  palace  he  noted  the  rapid  recovery  of  Peking. 
The  corpses  were  being  buried  out  of  sight,  the 
ruins  repaired,  the  raw  edges  of  useless  and 
barbarous  destruction  healed  over.  And  now, 
after  so  short  an  absence,  the  mysterious  Empress 
and  her  flock  of  mandarins  are  back  once  more, 
to  restore  as  best  they  may  their  sparkling  ter- 
races of  alabaster  and  their  walls  of  sanguine  lac. 
Once  more  the  secrets  of  the  Pink  City  will  fold 
their  soft  curtains  around  them,  and  that  inscrut- 
able existence  of  ceremonious  luxury  resume  its 
ancient  course.  Will  any  living  Western  man  see 
again  what  Loti  and  his  comrades  saw  in  the 
winter  of  1900?  In  one  sense  it  is  impossible 
that  he  should,  since  the  adorable  palace  of  the 
Empress,  occupied  by  Field-Marshal  von  Walder- 
see,  was  burned  down  by  accident  in  April  1901. 
But  even  what  survives  is  only  too  likely  to  be 
hidden  again  for  ever  from  European  eyes,  unless, 
indeed,  another  massacre  of  Christians  throws  it 
open  to  our  righteous  Vandalism. 

1902. 


SOME   RECENT   BOOKS  OF 
M.  PAUL  BOURGET 

VOY AG BUSES 

The  talent  of  M.  Paul  Bourget  has  but  rarely 
consented  to  submit  itself  to  that  precision  of 
form  and  rapidity  of  narrative  which  are  necessary 
for  the  conduct  of  a  short  story.  His  novels, 
indeed,  have  been  becoming  longer  and  longer, 
and  the  latest,  Un  Crime  d' Amour,  had,  we  are 
bound  to  confess,  such  an  abundance  of  reflec- 
tions and  so  little  plot  that  it  seemed  to  take  us 
back  to  the  days  of  Marivaux  and  Richardson. 
It  was,  therefore,  a  pleasant  surprise  to  open 
M.  Bourget's  new  volume,  and  discover  that  it  is 
a  collection  of  six  independent  stories,  not  one  of 
them  lengthy.  The  title,  Voyageuses,  is  explained 
by  a  brief  preface.  These  are  tales  of  female 
travellers,  whom  the  author  has  met  (or  feigns  to 
have  met)  in  the  course  of  those  restless  perambu- 
lations of  the  world  which  he  describes  to  us, 
every  now  and  then,  in  his  graceful  "sensations." 
M.  Bourget  appears  to  us  in  Voyageuses  in  his  very 
happiest  vein,  with  least  of  his  mannerism  and 
most  of  his  lucid  gift  of  penetrating  through  action 
to  motive. 

The  first  of  these  stories  is  also  the  most  subtle 
and    pleasing.       "  Antigone "    is    the    name    the 


240  FRENCH    PROFILES 

author  gives  to  a  Frenchwoman  whom  he  meets 
in  Corfu.  She  is  the  sister  of  a  deputy  who  has 
been  attainted  in  the  Panama  scandal,  and  who 
still  tries  to  be  dignified  in  exile.  This  ignoble 
person  affects  complete  innocence,  and  has  de- 
ceived a  noble  Ionian  burgher.  Napoleon  Zaffoni, 
into  a  belief  in  him,  so  that  Zaffoni  entrusts  to 
him  the  MS.  of  a  book,  the  work  of  his  lifetime, 
on  the  history  and  constitution  of  the  Ionian 
Islands.  From  this  the  deputy  grossly  plagiarises, 
and  would  be  cast  forth  even  from  Corfu  were  he 
not  protected  by  the  fervent  good  faith  of  his 
sister,  who,  in  spite  of  all  his  rogueries,  persists 
in  believing  in  him.  His  character  is  presently 
whitewashed  in  Paris,  and  he  returns  to  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  triumphant,  owing  all  to 
the  long-suffering  old  maid  whom  he  probably 
robs  and  upon  whom  he  certainly  tramples. 

We  pass  over  to  America  in  the  somewhat  fan- 
tastic tale  called  "  Deux  Manages."  The  author  has 
been  told  in  Paris  that  he  must  make  the  acquain- 
tance of  Mrs.  Tennyson  R.  Harris,  who  is  "  such  " 
a  bright,  cultured  woman  with  a  "  lovely "  home 
at  Newport.  Unfortunately  there  is  a  husband, 
a  common  millionaire,  without  any  conversation  ; 
but  one  need  take  no  notice  of  him.  M.  Bourget 
visits  Mrs.  Tennyson  R.  Harris,  but  finds  her 
pretentious,  scandalous  and  empty,  and  her  lovely 
home  a  crazy  shop  of  knick-knacks.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  becomes  deeply  interested  in  the 
husband,  a  silent,  down-trodden  man,  horribly 
overworked  and  beginning  to  suffer  from  "  nerve- 
trouble."     He  is  ordered  south  for  rest,  and  in- 


M.   PAUL   BOURGET  241 

vites  the  author  to  come  with  him.  At  Thomas- 
ville,  a  fashionable  watering-place  in  Georgia,  they 
have  a  curious  experience,  which  M.  Bourget  must 
be  permitted  to  tell  in  his  own  words. 

We  are  next  in  Ireland,  in  the  exquisite  story 
called  "  Neptunevale."  Two  young  Parisians  of 
fashion,  the  one  as  empty-headed  as  the  other, 
but,  beneath  their  frivolity,  deeply  and  mutually 
enamoured,  receive  soon  after  their  marriage  a 
singular  legacy.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  small 
property  on  the  west  coast  of  Ireland,  where  an 
uncle  of  the  hero's,  having  persisted  against  the 
wish  of  his  family  in  marrying  a  governess,  retired 
half  a  century  ago  in  dogged  determination  of 
exile.  The  young  people  do  not  know  what  to  do 
with  this  little  white  Irish  elephant,  except  to  sell 
it  for  as  much  cash  as  it  would  fetch.  But  they 
have  a  curiosity  to  see  it  first,  and,  utterly  ignorant, 
they  persuade  M.  Bourget,  who  "  knows  the 
language,"  to  come  over  with  them.  Neptunevale 
— for  that  is  the  name  of  their  uncle's  home — 
lies  on  the  coast  of  county  Galway  ;  they  have  to 
get  out  at  Oranmore  station  and  drive  to  it.  The 
arrival  at  the  strange  house,  the  reception  of  the 
French  visitors  by  the  old  Irish  servants,  the  way 
that  the  Celtic  sentiment  invades  and  engulfs  the 
newcomers,  so  that  at  last  they  are  afraid  to  sell 
the  place  at  all,  but  find  it  exercising  a  curious 
fascination  over  them,  an  attraction  half  of  terror 
and  half  of  love — all  this  is  described  with  extreme 
skill  and  delicacy.  Nor  can  we  fail  to  remark, 
with  some  degree  of  surprise  as  well  as  of  admira- 
tion, how  exactly  M.  Bourget,  who  can  have  but 

Q 


242  FRENCH    PROFILES 

a  slight  and  superficial  knowledge  of  Ireland,  has 
caught  the  note  of  Irish  mysticism.  There  is  a 
scene  in  which  an  old  mad  woman  and  a  little 
boy  sacrifice  a  cock,  with  horrid  rites,  to  some 
dim  Celtic  deity,  which  is  calculated  to  give  Mr. 
Yeats  himself  a  shiver. 

Much  more  conventional  is  "Charity  de  Femme," 
a  story  which  I  should  be  inclined  to  describe  as 
insignificant,  were  it  not  that  it  contains  an  in- 
cident, very  naturally  and  unexpectedly  introduced, 
which  illuminates  it,  as  with  a  flash  of  lightning. 
The  scene  of  this  tale,  moreover,  is  laid  in  the 
islands  off  the  coast  of  Provence,  a  territory 
which  seemed  to  belong  till  lately  to  Guy  de 
Maupassant,  and  has  since  been  annexed  by  M. 
Melchior  de  Vogu6.  There  is  a  vague  sense  in 
which  we  conceive  that  certain  districts  are  the 
property  of  particular  novelists,  and  resent  the 
intrusion  of  others,  unless  the  newcomers  bring 
with  them  some  very  marked  freshness  of  the 
point  of  view.  This  is  wanting  in  "  Charity  de 
Femme."  More  striking  is  "  Odile,"  which  is  com- 
posed, in  point  of  fact,  of  two  distinct  episodes. 
In  a  Parisian  drawing-room  the  author  meets  a 
strange  Marquise  d'Estinac,  very  distinguished, 
shy  and  mysterious,  who  invites  him  to  take  a 
drive  with  her  in  her  carriage,  for  the  purpose, 
as  he  afterwards  divines,  of  enabling  her  to  con- 
quer an  otherwise  irresistible  tendency  to  suicide. 
He  learns  that  she  is  extremely  fond  of  her 
husband,  who  neglects  her  for  a  belle  mondaine, 
Madame  Justel.  While  the  author  is  still  bewil- 
dered at  a  circumstance  which  is  unparalleled  in  his 


M.   PAUL  BOURGET         243 

career — for  the  companion  of  his  drive  refused  to 
speak  to  him  or  look  at  him — he  abruptly  hears 
of  the  sudden  and  mysterious  death  of  Madame 
d'Estinac.  A  couple  of  years  afterwards,  being 
at  Maloja,  he  meets  in  the  hotel  there  the  Marquis, 
who  has  in  the  meantime  married  Madame  Justel. 
A  third  person  is  of  the  party,  Mademoiselle  Odile 
d'Estinac,  a  girl  of  fourteen,  the  exact  counterpart 
of  her  unfortunate  mother.  M.  Bourget  soon 
perceives  that  between  this  proud,  reserved  child 
and  her  new  stepmother  the  relations  are  more 
than  strained.  He  is  witness  to  the  insulting 
tyranny  of  the  one,  the  isolation  and  despair  of 
the  other  ;  and  the  body  of  Odile  is  presently 
discovered  in  the  tarn  below  the  hotel. 

The  longest  and  the  most  elaborated  of  these 
stories  is  the  last,  and  it  does  not  properly  belong 
to  them,  for  "  La  Pia  "  is  no  voyageuse,  but  a  dweller, 
against  her  will,  in  the  tents  of  Shem.  This 
beautiful  and  extraordinary  tale  of  a  masterpiece 
stolen  from  the  remote  basilica  of  San  Spirito  in 
Val  d'Elsa  is  one  of  the  most  effective  examples 
we  have  met  with  of  M.  Bourget's  method.  It 
would  be  unfair  to  describe  it  fully,  for  while  the 
five  previous  stories,  of  which  we  have  given  the 
brief  outlines,  depend  exclusively  for  their  effect 
on  their  execution,  here  the  surprises  of  the  plot 
have  their  adventitious  value.  The  English 
readers  of  this  volume  will  be  inclined  to  see  in 
it  a  curious  tribute  to  an  artist  of  our  own  race. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  believe  that  M.  Bourget, 
who  has  always  shown  himself  sensitive,  as 
perhaps  no  other  French  writer  of  equal  value, 


244  FRENCH    PROFILES 

to  exotic  influences,  has  been  an  inattentive  reader 
of  Mr.  Henry  James's  latest  volumes,  and,  in  par- 
ticular, of  Embarrassments  and  Terminations.  He 
remains,  of  course,  essentially  himself;  but,  as 
Guy  de  Maupassant  in  Notre  Cceur  was  evidently 
trying  his  hand  at  an  essay  in  the  Bourget  manner, 
so  in  "Antigone"  and  "La  Pia"  M.  Bourget  is  dis- 
covered, so  it  seems  at  least  to  us,  no  less  in- 
dubitably trying  what  he  can  produce  with  the 
pencils  and  two-inch  square  of  ivory  that  are  the 
property  of  Mr.  Henry  James. 
1897. 

La  Duchesse  Bleue 

The  violence  of  public  movements  in  France  in 
1897  was  so  great  as  to  produce  an  unusual 
scarcity  in  literary  productions.  In  such  a  barren 
season,  therefore,  the  fecundity  of  M.  Paul  Bour- 
get is  remarkable.  La  Duchesse  Bleue  is  the  third 
volume  which  he  has  published  this  year,  and  it 
is  one  of  the  most  solid  and  elaborate  of  his 
novels.  But  it  is  not  quite  new,  although  it  is 
now  given  to  the  public  for  the  first  time  in  book 
form.  Five  years  ago,  if  I  remember  right,  the 
"  Journal "  applied  to  M.  Bourget  in  great  haste 
for  a  new  novel,  and  he  wrote,  somewhat  in  a 
hurry  and  for  that  special  purpose,  a  story  called 
Trois  Ames  d Artistes.  He  was  dissatisfied  with  it, 
and  left  it  there  in  the  lost  columns  of  a  daily 
newspaper,  from  which  he  has  now  redeemed  it, 
taking  the  opportunity  to  revise,  adapt  and  indeed 
rewrite  it  as  La  Duchesse  Bleue.  We  are  not  sure 
that  this  is  ever  a  very  fortunate  method  of  pro- 


M.   PAUL   BOURGET         245 

ducing  a  book,  and,  although  the  novel  before  us 
bears  trace  of  extraordinary  care  and  fastidious 
correction,  it  lacks  that  spontaneity  which  comes 
with  work  which  has  been  run  on  right  lines  from 
its  very  inception.  La  Duchesse  Bleue,  let  me 
admit  at  once,  is  not  M.  Bourget's  masterpiece. 
But  it  possesses  a  dedication,  which  is  some- 
thing of  a  literary  event.  The  dedications  of  M. 
Bourget  have  always  been  a  curious  feature  of  his 
work.  They  are  often,  as  in  the  present  case, 
essays  of  some  length  and  seriousness  ;  they 
frequently  develop  a  theory  or  a  philosophy  of 
the  ingenious  writer's.  On  principle,  we  are 
adverse  to  such  prefatory  disquisitions.  If  an 
author,  long  after  the  date  of  original  publication, 
likes  to  gossip  to  us  about  the  mode  in  which  the 
plot  and  place  commended  themselves  to  him,  we 
are  well  pleased  to  listen.  But  to  open  a  new 
novel,  and  to  find  that  a  critical  or  metaphysical 
essay  divides  us  from  the  tale,  is  not,  to  our  mind, 
a  happy  discovery.  It  tends  to  destroy  the 
illusion  ;  it  is,  in  its  distinguished  way,  of  the  same 
order  of  obstacle  as  "  this  is  a  fact "  of  the  very 
clumsy  narrator.  We  begin  by  passing  under  a 
cold  shower  of  scepticism  ;  the  effort  to  believe 
in  the  story  is  vastly  increased.  The  dedicatory 
prefaces  of  M.  Bourget  are  peculiarly  disillusion- 
ing. He  talks  in  them  so  much  about  the  crafts- 
man and  the  artist,  so  much  about  methods  and 
forms ;  in  short,  he  takes  the  music-box  to  pieces 
before  us  so  resolutely,  that  we  start  with  a  sense 
of  artificiality.  Even  in  these  complex  days,  we 
like  to  pretend  that  we  are  sitting  in  a  ring  around 


246  FRENCH    PROFILES 

the  story-teller,  under  the  hawthorn-tree,  and  that 
when  he  says,  "There  was,  once  upon  a  time," 
once  upon  a  time  there  was. 

In  the  case  before  us  we  are,  as  usual,  of 
opinion  that  the  "  dedication  "  is  no  help  to  the 
reader  in  giving  him  faith  in  the  incidents  about 
to  be  related  to  him,  but  it  forms  in  itself  an 
agreeable  and  suggestive  piece  of  literature.  It  is 
addressed  to  Madame  Matilde  Serao,  the  Neapolitan 
novelist,  whose  astonishing  II  paese  di  Cuccagna,  by 
the  way,  has  been  excellently  translated  out  of  the 
Italian  by  Madame  Paul  Bourget.  M.  Bourget 
has  been  reading  this  brilliant  book,  and  he  has 
felt,  once  more,  what  a  chasm  divides  the  crowded 
and  animated  scenes  of  Madame  Serao  from  his 
own  limited  studies  of  psychological  problems. 
Accordingly  he  writes  a  long  letter  to  explain  this 
to  Madame  Serao,  and  to  remind  her  that  in  the 
house  of  the  novel  there  are  many  chambers. 
The  great  central  hall,  no  doubt,  is  that  occupied 
by  herself  and  Balzac,  Zola  and  Tolstoi — and,  we 
may  add,  by  Fielding  and  Dickens — where  an 
eager  creative  energy  sets  on  their  feet,  and  spurs 
to  concerted  action  personages  of  every  kind,  in 
hundreds  at  a  time.  This  prodigious  power  to 
crowd  the  canvas  with  figures  belongs  to  Madame 
Serao  alone  among  the  living  novelists  of  Italy. 
One  has  only  to  recollect  how  entirely  it  is  want- 
ing to  Gabriele  d'Annunzio.  It  is  a  gift  not  to  be 
despised  ;  it  suggests  a  virility  of  intellect  and  a 
breadth  of  sympathy  which  are  rewarded  by  a 
direct  influence  over  a  wide  circle  of  readers. 
The  success  of  such  novels,  in  the  hands  of  a  great 


M.    PAUL   BOURGET         247 

artist,  is  not  problematical,  because  they  possess, 
obviously  and  beyond  contradiction,  what  M. 
Bourget  calls  "  le  coloris  de  la  vie  en  mouvement." 
If,  however,  this  kind  of  scene-painting  were 
the  only  species  of  fiction  permitted,  there  are 
many  novelists  who  could  never  earn  their  daily 
bread,  and  M.  Bourget  is  one  of  them.  Accord- 
ingly his  flattering  address  to  Madame  Serao  is 
merely  the  prelude  to  an  ingenious  apology  for 
the  painting  of  sentiments  and  emotions  in  the 
novel  which  analyses  minute  and  fugitive  im- 
pressions. This  demands  a  closeness  of  texture 
and  a  strenuous  uniformity  of  technical  effort 
which  are  in  themselves  advantages,  but  which 
are  with  difficulty  exercised  in  the  huge  world- 
romance.  In  the  course  of  his  essay  M.  Bourget 
pauses  to  express  his  warm  admiration  of  Mr. 
Henry  James,  whom  he  takes  as  the  first  living 
exponent  of  this  peculiarly  intense  and  vivid 
manner  of  contemplating,  as  through  a  micro- 
scope, the  movement  of  intellectual  life.  We 
cannot  but  record  this  fact  with  complaisance, 
since,  in  reviewing  Voyageuses  last  year,  we  re- 
marked that,  if  it  were  possible  to  imagine  that 
a  prominent  French  writer  could  undergo  the 
influence  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  contemporary,  the 
transition  which  the  style  and  attitude  of  M. 
Bourget  are  now  undergoing  would  point  to  a 
deliberate  study  of  Mr.  James's  manner.  M. 
Bourget,  in  the  dedication  to  La  Duchesse  Bleue, 
practically  confesses  that  we  were  correct  in 
what  seemed  our  almost  daring  conjecture.  He 
names  Mr.  James's  volume  called   Terminations  as 


248  FRENCH    PROFILES 

the  model  which  he  has  placed  before  himself  in  his 
recent  treatment  of  problems  of  artistic  psychology. 

The  original  name  of  the  story  before  us  was 
Trots  Ames  d' Artistes,  as  we  have  already  said.  M. 
Bourget  explains  that,  on  reflection,  he  thought 
this  too  ambitious  a  title.  It  was  at  least  descrip- 
tive, whereas  La  Duchesse  Bleue  suggests  nothing  ; 
it  proves  upon  examination  to  be  the  nickname  of 
a  part  in  a  play  in  which  the  heroine  made  a 
success.  M.  Bourget  has  portrayed  in  this 
book  three  artistic  temperaments  set  side  by  side. 
These  are  respectively  those  of  a  novelist  and 
dramatist,  an  actress  and  a  painter,  and  he  has 
shown  these  three  persons  to  us  in  a  mutual  crisis 
of  tragical  passion.  Jacques  Moran,  the  dramatist, 
has  a  play  being  acted,  for  the  principal  role  in 
which  a  charming  little  actress,  with  a  Botticelli 
face,  Camille  Favier,  makes  a  great  success  ;  the 
painter  is  Vincent  la  Croix,  who  tells  the  story. 
Moran  is  adored  by  Camille,  but  deserts  her  for  a 
woman  of  fashion,  Madame  de  Bonnivet,  while 
Vincent,  worked  upon  by  his  generous  indignation 
at  this  treatment,  fails  to  perceive  through  three 
hundred  pages  that  he  himself  loves  Camille,  and 
might  be  loved  in  return.  The  plot  is  no  more 
complicated  than  this,  and  we  confess  that  it 
requires  some  respect  for  M.  Bourget  and  some 
enthusiasm  for  the  processes  of  the  psychological 
novel  to  carry  us  through  so  long  a  book  attached 
to  so  slender  a  thread  of  plot. 

Moran  and  Camille  are  entirely  successful  in 
life,  Vincent  la  Croix  is  a  failure  in  everything  he 
touches,  and  the  object  of  La  Duchesse  Bleue  seems 


M.   PAUL    BOURGET         249 

to  be  to  distinguish  between  the  one  race  of  artists 
which  translates  marvellously  without  itself  experi- 
encing, and  the  other  race  which  experiences  with- 
out being  able  to  translate.  For  a  phrase  to  say  on 
the  boards,  for  a  sentence  to  write  in  a  book,  the 
former  class  would  sell  their  father  or  their  mother. 
The  moral  of  La  Duchesse  Bleue,  in  a  nutshell, 
is  that  if  we  wish  to  keep  our  hearts  tender  and 
fresh,  we  must  be  content  to  be  ourselves  mediocre 
and  obscure.  The  thesis  is  a  not  unfamiliar  one. 
It  occurred  to  the  fiery  spirit  of  Elizabeth  Browning 
while  she  watched  the  great  god  Pan,  down  by 
the  reeds  in  the  river,  "  draw  out  the  pith  like  the 
heart  of  a  man."  In  the  hypothesis  of  the  French 
novelist,  a  love,  a  hatred,  a  joy,  a  sorrow,  is  to 
the  really  successful  artist  nothing  more  than  so 
much  manured  earth  out  of  which  he  can  force 
the  flower  of  his  talent,  that  blossom  of  delicacy 
and  passion,  to  perfect  which  he  will  not  hesitate 
for  a  moment  to  kill  in  himself  every  true  delicacy 
and  every  living  emotion.  It  is  not  a  pleasant 
theory,  and  the  ugliness  of  it  may  help  us  who  form 
the  vast  majority  of  men  and  women  to  bear  with 
fortitude  the  mortifying  fact  thatwewere  not  born  to 
be  geniuses.  But  we  think  that  M.  Bourget  makes 
a  mistake  in  attributing  this  peculiarly  inhuman 
hardness  of  heart  exclusively  to  the  artist  of  the 
highest  class.  We  are  afraid  that  our  experience 
has  led  us  to  observe  the  vanity — which  is  really 
at  the  root  of  this  moral  deformity — in  those  who 
have  nothing  of  genius  in  their  nature  except  its 
fretfulness  and  its  ferocity. 


250  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Complications  Sentimentales 

In  reading  M.  Bourget's  collection  of  short 
stories  called  Vqyageuses,  we  observed  that  he  had 
quitted  for  a  moment  that  perfumed  atmosphere 
of  the  salon  and  the  boudoir  which  he  loves,  and 
that  he  had  consented  to  take  us  with  him  out 
into  the  fresh  air.  It  was  but  an  episode  ;  in  Com- 
plications Sentimentales  we  find  ourselves  once  more 
in  the  scented  world  of  Parisian  elegance,  among 
those  well-bred  people  of  wealth,  without  occupa- 
tion, whose  intrigues  and  passions  M.  Bourget  has 
taught  himself  to  analyse  with  such  extraordinary 
precision.  His  new  book  consists  of  three  tales, 
or  short  novels,  one  of  which  at  least,  "  L'Ecran," 
might  easily  be  expanded  into  the  form  of  a  com- 
plete work.  These  three  stories  deal  with  three 
critical  conditions  of  the  mind  and  temper  of  a 
woman.  The  first  and  second  end  in  a  moral 
tragedy :  the  third  ends  well,  after  excursions  and 
alarms,  and  may  be  called  a  tragi-comedy  of  the 
soul.  All  three  analyse  symptoms  of  that  disease 
which  M.  Bourget  believes  to  be  so  widely  dis- 
seminated in  the  feminine  society  of  the  day,  "  la 
trahison  de  la  femme,"  deception  under  the  guise 
of  a  bland  and  maiden  candour.  The  heroines  of 
the  three  stories  are  all  liars :  but  while  two  of 
them  are  minxes,  the  third  is  a  dupe.  Admirers 
of  that  clever  novel,  MensongeSy  will  find  themselves 
quite  in  their  element  when  they  read  Complications 
Sentimentales. 

One  of  these  three  stories,  "  L'Ecran,"  is  in  its 
way  a  masterpiece.     M.  Bourget  has  never  written 


M.    PAUL   BOURGET  251 

anything  which  better  exempHfies  his  pecuHar 
quaUties,  the  insinuating  and  persistent  force  of  his 
style,  his  preoccupation  with  delicate  subtleties  and 
undulations  of  feeling,  the  skill  with  which  he 
renders  the  most  fleeting  shades  of  mental  sensation. 
In  "  L'Ecran,"  moreover,  he  avoids  to  a  remarkable 
degree  that  defect  of  movement  which  has  seriously 
damaged  several  of  his  most  elaborate  books : 
which,  for  instance,  makes  Utie  Idylle  Tragique 
scarcely  readable.  His  danger,  like  that  of  Mr. 
Henry  James,  whom  he  resembles  on  more  sides 
than  one,  is  to  delay  in  interminable  psychological 
reflections  until  our  attention  has  betrayed  us,  and 
we  have  lost  the  thread  of  the  story.  This  error, 
or  defect,  would  seem  to  have  presented  itself  as  a 
peril  to  the  mind  of  M.  Bourget :  for  in  his  latest 
stories  he  is  manifestly  on  his  guard  against  it,  and 
"  L'Ecran,"  in  particular,  is  a  really  excellent 
example  of  a  tale  told  to  excite  and  amuse  even 
those  who  are  quite  indifferent  to  the  lesson  it 
conveys,  and  to  the  exquisite  art  of  its  delivery. 

In  the  month  of  June  the  Lautrecs  and  the  Sar- 
lifeves,  two  aristocratic  menages  of  Paris,  come  over 
to  England  to  enjoy  the  London  season,  into  the 
whirlpool  of  which  they  descend.  But  at  almost 
the  same  moment  arrives  the  Vicomte  Bertrand 
d'Aydie,  who  is  understood  to  nurse  an  absolutely 
hopeless  and  respectful  passion  for  the  sainted 
Marquise  Alyette  de  Lautrec.  This  devotion  is 
much  "  chaffed "  in  clubs  and  smilingly  alluded 
to  in  drawing-rooms  as  pure  waste  of  time,  since 
the  purity  and  dignity  of  Madame  de  Lautrec  are 
above  the  possibility  of  suspicion.     But  Madame 


252  FRENCH    PROFILES 

de  Lautrec's  dearest  friend  happens  to  be  the 
Vicomtesse  Emmeline  de  Sarlieve — a  gay  and 
amiable  butterfly,  of  whom  no  one  thinks  seriously 
at  all.  Bertrand  and  Emmeline  have,  however,  for 
some  time  past,  carried  on  with  complete  immunity 
a  liaison,  under  the  shadow  of  their  friendship  for 
Alyette,  fe'cran,  the  screen.  Bertrand  encourages 
the  idea  that  he  is  throwing  away  a  desperate 
passion  on  the  icy  heart  of  Alyette,  when  he  is 
really  planning  with  Emmeline  rendezvous,  which 
owe  their  facility  to  the  presence  of  Alyette.  The 
reader  does  not  know  M.  Bourget  if  he  is  not  by 
this  time  conscious  that  here  are  united  all  the 
elements  for  one  of  his  most  ingenious  ethical 
problems.  The  visit  of  the  quintette  to  London 
precipitates  the  inevitable  catastrophe.  M.  Bour- 
get's  sketch  of  our  society  is  wonderfully  skilful 
and  entertaining,  and  Londoners  will  recognise 
some  familiar  faces,  scarcely  disguised  under  the 
travesty  of  false  names. 
1899. 

Outre-Mer 

The  author  of  Outre-Mer  takes  himself,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  rather  seriously.  He  passes  in  New 
York  and  in  Paris  as  a  kind  of  new  De  Tocque- 
ville.  We  mean  no  detraction  of  his  gifts,  nor  of 
the  charm  of  his  amusing  volumes,  when  we  say 
that  they  are  not  quite  so  important  to  an  English 
as  to  a  French  or  to  an  American  audience.  They 
are  important  in  France,  because  M.  Bourget 
is  a  highly  accomplished  public  favourite,  whose 
methods  attract  attention  whatever  subject  he  may 


M.    PAUL   BOURGET  253 

deal  with,  and  whose  mind  has  here  been  given  to 
the  study  of  a  kind  of  life  not  familiar  to  Frenchmen. 
They  are  important  in  America,  because  America 
is  greatly  moved  by  European  opinion,  and  must 
be  flattered  at  so  close  an  examination  of  her  in- 
stitutions by  an  eminent  French  writer.  But  in 
England  our  contact  with  the  United  States  is 
closer  and  more  habitual  than  that  between  those 
States  and  France,  while  our  vanity  is  not  more 
stimulated  by  M.  Bourget's  study  of  America  than 
by  M.  Loti's  pictures  of  Jerusalem.  To  put  it 
boldly,  we  know  more  and  care  less  than  the 
two  main  classes  who  will  form  the  audience  of 
Outre-Mer. 

Taking,  then,  this  calmer  standpoint,  the  feats 
of  M.  Bourget's  sympathetic  appreciation,  and  the 
deficiencies  in  his  equipment,  leave  us,  on  the 
whole,  rather  indifferent.  No  book  of  this  author 
has  been  so  much  talked  of  beforehand,  or  so 
ardently  expected,  as  Outre-Mer,  and  we  do  not 
suppose  that  its  two  main  bodies  of  readers  will 
be  at  all  disappointed.  But  no  philosophical  Eng- 
lishman will  consider  it  the  best  of  M.  Bourget's 
books.  He  will,  for  example,  be  infinitely  less 
pleased  with  it  than  he  was  with  Sensations  d'ltalte, 
a  much  less  popular  work.  The  fact  is  that  in 
reading  what  the  elegant  psychologist  has  to  say 
about  America,  "  on  y  regrette,"  as  he  himself 
would  say,  "  la  douce  et  lente  Europe."  The 
reason  of  this  is,  that  in  dealing  with  certain  super- 
ficial features  of  a  vast  and  crude  new  civilisation, 
M.  Bourget  is  a  razor  cutting  a  hone.  The  razor 
is  amazingly  sharp  and  bright,  but  it  is  not  doing 


254  FRENCH    PROFILES 

its  proper  business.  M.  Bourget  is  a  subtle  and 
minute  analyst,  whose  gift  it  is  to  distinguish  be- 
tween delicate  orders  of  thought  which  are  yet 
closely  allied,  to  determine  between  new  elements 
and  old  ones  in  survival,  to  provoke,  with  pro- 
fundity and  penetration,  long  developments  of 
reverie.  He  is  at  home  in  old  societies  and 
waning  cities  ;  he  is  a  master  in  the  evocation 
of  new  lights  on  outworn  themes.  He  is  full  of 
the  nostalgia  of  the  past,  and  he  dreams  about 
the  dead  while  he  moves  among  the  living.  It  is 
obvious  that  such  a  writer  is  out  of  place  in  the 
study  of  a  country  that  has  no  past,  no  history, 
no  basis  of  death,  a  country  where  a  man  looks 
upon  his  grandfather  as  a  historical  character,  and 
upon  a  house  a  hundred  years  old  as  a  historical 
monument.  What  M.  Bourget  has  done  is  extra- 
ordinarily clever  and  brilliant,  but  he  was  not  the 
man  to  be  set  to  do  it. 

The  conditions  under  which  the  work  progressed 
were,  though  specious,  not  less  unfavourable  to 
its  perfection.  These  notes,  by  a  famous  French- 
man, on  the  social  life  of  America  to-day,  were 
prepared  to  appear  first  of  all  in  an  enterprising 
New  York  journal.  That  M.  Bourget  should  ac- 
cept such  a  test  proclaims  his  courage,  and  that 
he  should,  in  the  main,  have  endured  the  ordeal, 
his  accuracy  and  care.  It  is  none  the  less  a  shock 
to  find  the  book  dedicated,  in  a  very  clever  pre- 
fatory epistle,  to  Mr.  James  Gordon  Bennett,  and 
to  realise  that  before  its  impressions  could  be  given 
to  the  world  they  had  to  pass  through  the  mill  of 
the  New  York  Herald*     The  result  is  a  book  which 


M.   PAUL  BOURGET         255 

is  beautifully  written,  and  which,  above  all,  gives 
the  impression  of  being  sincerely  written — a  book 
which  contains  many  brilliant  flashes  of  intuition, 
many  just  and  liberal  opinions,  and  some  pictures 
of  high  merit,  but  which,  somehow,  fails  to  be 
philosophical,  and  is  apt  to  slip  between  the  stools 
of  vain  conjecture  and  mere  reporter's  work.  A 
great  deal  which  will  be  read  with  most  entertain- 
ment in  Outre-Mer — the  description  of  Chicago, 
for  instance,  and  the  visit  to  the  night-side  of  New 
York — is  really  fitted  to  appear  in  a  daily  news- 
paper, and  then  to  be  forgotten.  It  is  very  full 
and  conscientious,  but  it  is  the  production  of  a 
sublimated  reporter,  and  there  is  precious  little  De 
Tocqueville  about  it. 

This,  however,  may  be  considered  hypercritical. 
M.  Bourget  spent  eight  or  nine  months  in  the 
United  States,  with  no  other  occupation  than  the 
collection  of  the  notes  from  which  these  volumes 
are  selected.  He  had  all  possible  facilities  given 
to  him,  and  he  worked  in  a  fair  and  generous 
spirit.  He  was  genuinely  interested  in  America, 
interested  more  intelligently,  no  doubt,  than  any 
other  recent  Frenchman  has  been.  It  would  have 
been  strange  if  he  had  not  written  a  book  which 
repaid  perusal.  The  faults  of  M.  Bourget's  style 
have  always  been  over-elaboration  and  excess  of 
detail.  Here  he  has  been  tempted  to  indulge 
these  frailties,  and  we  cannot  say  that  he  is  not 
occasionally  tedious  when  he  lingers  upon  facts 
and  conditions  obvious  to  all  Englishmen  who 
visit  America.  Hence,  we  like  his  book  best  where 
it  gives  us   the   results  of   the   application  of  his 


256  FRENCH    PROFILES 

subtle  intellect  to  less  familiar  matters.  All  he  has 
to  say  about  the  vitality  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  the  United  States  is  worthy  of  close  attention. 
His  interviews  with  Cardinal  Gibbon  and  Arch- 
bishop Ireland  are  of  material  interest,  and  his 
notes  on  the  socialistic  tendencies  of  American 
Catholicism  singularly  valuable.  No  pages  here 
are  more  graphic  than  those  which  record  a  visit 
to  a  Roman  church  in  New  York,  and  the  sermon 
which  the  author  listened  to  there.  He  was  struck, 
as  all  visitors  to  America  must  be,  with  the  absence 
of  reverie,  of  the  spiritual  and  experimental  spirit, 
in  the  teaching  and  tendency  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  in  America,  and  with  its  practical  energy, 
its  businesslike  activity  and  vehemence.  In  a  few 
words  M.  Bourget  renders  with  admirable  skill 
that  air  of  antiquity  and  Catholic  piety  which 
make  Baltimore  more  like  a  city  of  Southern 
Europe  than  any  other  in  the  United  States.  In 
observation  of  this  kind  M.  Bourget  can  always 
be  trusted. 

As  befits  the  inquiry  of  a  Latin  psychologist, 
the  question  of  woman  takes  a  very  prominent 
part  in  the  investigation  of  M.  Bourget.  On  this 
subject  what  he  has  to  say  and  what  he  has  to 
admit  ignorance  of  are  equally  interesting.  He 
has  to  confess  himself  baffled  by  that  extraordinary 
outcome  of  Western  civilisation,  the  American 
girl,  but  he  revenges  himself  by  the  notation  of 
innumerable  instances  of  her  peculiarities  and 
idiosyncrasies.  On  the  whole,  though  she  puzzles 
him,  he  is  greatly  delighted  with  her.  We  re- 
member hearing  of  the  visit  paid  to  Newport  by 


M.   PAUL   BOURGET         257 

a  young  French  poet  of  the  Symbolists,  who  was 
well  acquainted  with  the  American  language,  but 
whose  manners  were  all  adjusted  to  the  model 
of  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel.  He  made  a  dozen 
serious  blunders,  all  of  which  were  benignly  for- 
given, before  he  settled  down  to  some  due  recog- 
nition of  the  cold,  free,  stimulating  and  sphinx-like 
creature  that  woman  is  on  the  shores  of  America. 
M.  Bourget  is  too  much  a  man  of  the  world,  and 
has  been  too  carefully  trained,  to  err  in  this  way, 
but  his  wonder  is  no  less  pronounced.  He  comes 
to  the  curious  "  r^sultat  que  le  d^sir  de  la  femme 
est  demeur^  au  second  rang  dans  les  preoccupa- 
tions de  ces  hommes."  He  considers,  as  other 
observers  have  done,  that  this  condition  of  things 
can  be  but  transitory,  and  that  the  strange  apo- 
theosis of  the  American  girl,  with  all  that  it  pre- 
supposes in  the  way  of  reticence  of  manners,  is 
but  a  transitory  phase.  He  falls  into  an  eloquent 
description  of  the  American  idol,  the  sexless 
woman  of  the  United  States,  and  closes  it  with  a 
passage  which  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  in 
his  volumes : — 

"  Cette  femme  peut  ne  pas  Itre  aim^e.  Elle 
n'a  pas  besoin  d'etre  aimee.  Ce  n'est  ni  la  volupt6 
ni  la  tendresse  qu'elle  symbolise.  Elle  est  comme 
un  objet  d'art  vivant,  une  savante  et  derni^re  com- 
position humaine  qui  atteste  que  le  Yankee,  ce 
d^sesp^r^  d'hier,  ce  vaincu  du  vieux  monde,  a  su 
tirer  de  ce  sauvage  univers  011  il  fut  jet6  par  le 
sort  toute  une  civilisation  nouvelle,  incarn^e  dans 
cette  femme-la,  son  luxe  et  son  orgueil.  Tout 
s'^claire  de  cette  civilisation  au  regard  de  ces  yeux 

R 


258  FRENCH    PROFILES 

profonds,  .  .  .  tout  ce  qui  est  I'ld^alisme  de  ce 
pays  sans  Id^al,  ce  qui  sera  sa  perte  peut-etre, 
mais  qui  jusqu'ici  demeure  sa  grandeur :  la  foi 
absolue,  unique,  systematique  et  indomptable  dans 
la  Volonte." 

With  the  West  the  author  does  not  seem  to 
have  any  personal  acquaintance.  In  his  chapter 
on  "  Cowboys "  he  tells  some  marvellous  stories. 
We  know  not  what  to  think  of  the  vivacious  anec- 
dote of  the  men  who,  weary  to  see  some  eminent 
emanation  of  the  East,  planned  the  kidnapping 
of  Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt  as  she  passed  Green 
River  on  her  way  to  the  Pacific.  The  great  actress 
had  taken  an  earlier  express,  and  was  saved  from 
her  embarrassing  captors.  M.  Bourget  occupies 
nearly  fifty  pages  with  a  "  Confession  of  a  Cow- 
boy," the  source  of  which  is  very  vaguely  stated. 
All  this,  we  must  acknowledge,  seems  rather  poor 
to  us,  and  must  have  been  collected  at  worse  than 
second-hand.  Those  chapters,  on  the  contrary, 
which  deal  with  the  South,  are  particularly  fresh 
and  charming.  There  is  no  sort  of  connection  be- 
tween the  close  of  the  second  volume,  which  deals 
with  an  excursion  through  Georgia  and  Florida, 
and  the  rest  of  the  book,  yet  no  one  will  wish  this 
species  of  appendix  omitted.  The  author  gives  an 
exceedingly  picturesque  and  humorous  picture  of 
life  in  a  Georgian  watering-place,  which  he  calls 
Phillipeville,  where  somebody  or  other  is  lynched 
every  year.  M.  Bourget,  as  in  duty  bound,  tells  a 
spirited  story  of  a  "  lynchage."  He  describes,  too, 
in  his  very  best  style,  the  execution  of  a  rebellious 
but  repentant  mulatto. 


M.    PAUL   BOURGET         259 

When  our  author  proceeded  still  further  South, 
he  had  not  the  good  fortune  to  see  such  strik- 
ing sights,  or  to  meet  with  so  singular  a  popula- 
tion. But  at  Jacksonville,  Florida,  he  was  able,  as 
nowhere  else,  to  study  the  negro  at  home,  and  at 
St.  Augustine  he  discovered  to  his  delight  a  sort 
of  Cannes  or  Monte  Carlo  of  America,  with  its 
gardens  of  oranges  and  jasmine,  its  green  oaks  and 
its  oleanders.  He  rejoiced,  after  his  long  inland 
wanderings,  to  see  the  ocean  breaking  on  the  reefs 
of  Anastasia.  Upon  the  whole,  whether  in  the 
North  or  the  South,  M.  Bourget  has  been  pleased 
with  the  United  States.  He  has  recognised  the 
two  great  defects  of  that  country :  its  incoherence, 
and  its  brutality.  He  has  recognised  a  factitious 
element  in  its  cultivation,  corruption  in  its  politics, 
and  a  general  excess  in  its  activity.  He  delights 
in  three  typical  American  words,  and  discovers 
"puff,"  "boom,"  and  "bluff"  at  every  turn.  He 
comes  back  to  Europe  at  last  with  that  emotion 
of  gratitude  which  every  European  feels,  however 
warmly  he  has  been  welcomed  in  America,  and 
in  however  favourable  a  light  American  life  has 
been  shown  to  him.  Yet  he  is  conscious  of  its 
high  virtues,  its  noble  possibilities,  and  on  the 
whole  his  picture  of  the  great  Republic,  so  care- 
fully and  modestly  prepared,  so  conscientiously 
composed,  is  in  a  high  degree  a  flattering  and 
attractive  one. 

1895. 


26o  FRENCH    PROFILES 


L'Etape 

We  are  so  little  accustomed  in  England  to  the 
polemical  novel,  or,  indeed,  to  the  novel  of  ideas 
in  any  form,  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  realise  the 
condition  of  mind  which  has  led  M.  Bourget  to 
fling  himself  into  the  arena  of  French  politics  with 
a  romance  which  must  give  extreme  offence  to  the 
majority  of  its  possible  readers,  and  which  runs 
violently  counter  to  the  traditional  complacency  of 
French  democratic  life.  It  is  probable  that  M. 
Bourget  no  longer  cares  very  much  whether  he 
offends  or  pleases,  and,  doubtless,  the  more  he 
scourges  the  many,  the  more  he  endears  himself  to 
the  comparatively  few.  Here,  in  England,  we  are 
called  upon — if  only  English  people  would  com- 
prehend the  fact — to  contemplate  and  not  to  criti- 
cise the  intellectual  and  moral  idiosyncrasies  of  our 
neighbours.  If  we  could  but  learn  the  lesson  that 
a  curious  attention,  an  inquisitive  observation  into 
foreign  modes  of  thought  becomes  us  very  well, 
but  that  we  are  not  asked  for  our  opinion,  it  would 
vastly  facilitate  our  relations.  In  calling  attention 
to  M.  Bourget's  extremely  interesting  and  powerful 
novel,  I  expressly  deprecate  the  impertinence  of 
our  "  taking  a  side  "  in  the  matter  of  its  aim.  We 
have  our  own  national  failings  to  attend  to  ;  let 
us,  for  goodness'  sake,  avoid  the  folly  of  hauling 
our  neighbours  up  to  a  tribunal  of  Anglo-Saxon 
political  virtue.  It  should  be  enough  for  us  that 
the  phenomena  which  in  France  produce  a  Mon- 
neron  on  the  one  side  and  a  Ferrand  on  the  other 


M.   PAUL   BOURGET  261 

are  very  interesting.    Let  us  observe  them  as  closely 
as  we  can,  but  not  hazard  a  decision. 

The  title  of  M.  Bourget's  book  would  offer  me 
a  great  difficulty  if  I  were  called  upon  to  translate 
it,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  a  Frenchman  will  im- 
mediately understand  what  is  symbolised  by  it. 
An  etape  is  a  stage,  a  station  ;  on  briile  I'e'tape  by 
rushing  through,  without,  as  it  were,  stopping  to 
change  horses.  Is,  then,  the  theme  of  this  book 
the  stage,  the  day's  march,  as  it  were,  which  its 
over-educated  peasant  takes  in  passing  over  to 
Conservatism  ?  Does  the  Monnerons'  fault  consist 
in  their  having  "  burned "  their  etape  in  their  too 
great  hurry  to  cut  a  figure  in  society  ?  It  is  not 
until  the  final  page  516  that  we  meet  with  the 
word  and  the  image,  even  as  we  have  to  reach  the 
last  paragraph  of  Stendhal's  masterpiece  before  we 
hear  of  the  Chartreuse  de  Parme.  Enough,  then, 
that  the  subject  of  this  £tape  is  the  story  of  a  family 
of  peasants  from  the  Ardeche,  one  of  whom  has 
received  an  education  in  excess  of  his  fitness  for 
it  ;  has  become,  in  other  words,  a  functionary  and 
a  bourgeois  without  the  necessary  preparation.  It 
might  be  rash  to  suppose  that  so  practised  an 
author  as  M.  Bourget  would  condescend  to  be 
influenced  by  a  much  younger  writer,  or  else  I 
should  say  that  throughout  this  book  I  am  con- 
strained to  perceive  the  spirit  of  M.  Maurice 
Barrds.  The  attitude  of  the  writer  of  L'^tape  has, 
at  all  events,  become  astonishingly  identical  with 
that  of  the  author  of  Les  De'racines,  and  to  have 
read  that  extraordinary  work  will  prepare  a  reader 
in  many  ways  for  the  study  of  the  novel  before  us. 


262  FRENCH    PROFILES 

In  both  the  one  and  the  other  it  would,  perhaps, 
be  more  critical  to  say  that  we  see  fructifying  and 
spreading  the  pessimist  influence  of  Taine. 

The  uncomfortable  and  paradoxical  condition  of 
modern  society  in  France  is  attributed  by  these 
writers  of  the  school  of  Taine  to  the  obstinate 
cultivation  of  political  chimeras  which  have  out- 
lived the  excitement  of  the  Revolution.  The  key- 
note to  the  attitude  of  modern  democracy  is 
conceived  by  M.  Bourget  to  be  hostility  to  the 
origins  and  history  of  the  country.  The  good 
hero  of  the  story,  M.  Ferrand  (who  is  inclined, 
like  all  good  heroes,  to  be  a  little  oracular),  re- 
minds the  young  socialist  of  a  passage  in  Plato's 
Timceus  where  we  are  told  that  a  most  ancient 
priest  of  the  temple  of  Sais  warned  Solon  that  the 
weakness  of  the  Greeks  was  their  possessmg  no 
ancient  doctrine  transmitted  by  their  ancestors, 
no  education  passed  down  from  age  to  age  by 
venerable  teachers.  It  is  this  lack  of  authoritative 
continuity  which  M.  Bourget  deplores ;  his  view 
of  1789  is  that  it  snapped  the  thread  that  bound 
society  to  the  past,  that  it  vulgarised,  uprooted, 
shattered,  and  destroyed  things  which  were  essen- 
tial to  national  prosperity  and  to  individual  happi- 
ness. He  thinks  that  one  of  these  links  still  exists 
and  can  be  strengthened  indefinitely — namely,  the 
Catholic  religion.  Therefore,  according  to  M. 
Bourget,  the  first  thing  a  Frenchman  has  to  do 
is  to  abandon  his  ideology  and  his  collectivism, 
which  lead  only  to  anarchical  and  incoherent 
forms  of  misery,  and  to  humble  himself  before 
the  Church,  by  the  aid  of  which  alone  a  whole- 


M.   PAUL  BOURGET         263 

some  society  can  be  rebuilt  on  the  ruins  of  a 
hundred  years  of  revolutionary  madness. 

One  is  bound,  however,  to  point  out  that  if 
Taine's  teaching  can  be  interpreted  in  a  re- 
actionary sense,  there  is  nothing  in  his  writings 
which  seems  to  justify  its  being  distorted  for 
political  and  clerical  purposes.  I  have  endeavoured 
to  summarise  as  fairly  as  possible  what  seem  to 
be  M.  Bourget's  views  about  "the  lack  of  authori- 
tative continuity."  But  Taine  is  careful,  in  L'Ancien 
R^gimey  precisely  to  insist  that  all  the  Revolution 
did  was  to  transfer  the  exercise  of  absolute  power 
from  the  King  to  a  central  body  of  men  in  Paris. 
Here  was  no  breach  of  continuity  ;  it  was  merely 
a  new  form  of  precisely  the  same  thing.  M. 
Bourget,  and  those  who  act  with  him,  seem  to 
overlook  completely  the  kernel  of  Taine's  argu- 
ment, namely,  that  the  Revolution  was  not  a 
spontaneous  growth,  but  the  outcome  of  three 
centuries  of  antecedent  events.  The  latest  re- 
actionaries, I  must  confess,  appear  to  me  to  intro- 
duce an  element  of  wilful  obscurity  into  a  position 
which  Taine  left  admirably  clear  and  plain. 

Considered  purely  as  a  story,  L'Etape  is  told 
with  all  M.  Bourget's  accustomed  solidity  and 
refinement.  It  has,  moreover,  a  vigorous  evolu- 
tion which  captivates  the  attention,  and  prevents 
the  elaboration  of  the  author's  analysis  from  ever 
becoming  dull.  The  action  passes  in  university 
society,  and  practically  within  the  families  of  two 
classical  professors  at  the  Sorbonne.  M.  Ferrand, 
the  Catholic,  who  is  all  serenity  and  joy,  has  a 
gentle,  lovely  daughter,   Brigitte.     She  is  courted 


264  FRENCH    PROFILES 

by  Jean,  the  eldest  son  of  M.  Monneron,  who  has 
the  misfortune  to  be  a  Republican  and  a  Drey- 
fusard,  and  everything,  in  fact,  which  is  sinister 
and  fatal  in  the  eyes  of  M.  Bourget.  Brigitte  will 
not  marry  Jean  Monneron  unless  he  consents  to 
become  a  Catholic,  and  the  intrigue  of  the  novel 
proceeds,  with  alarming  abruptness,  during  the 
days  in  which  Jean  is  making  up  his  mind  to  take 
the  leap.  Terrible  things  happen  to  the  agitated 
members  of  the  Monneron  family — things  which 
lead  them  to  forgery  and  attempted  murder — and 
all  on  account  of  their  deplorable  political  opinions, 
while  the  happy  and  virtuous  Ferrands  sit  up  aloft, 
in  the  purity  of  their  reaction,  and,  ultimately,  as 
it  happens,  take  care  of  the  life  of  poor  Jean.  Told 
baldly  thus,  or  rather  not  told  at  all,  but  sum- 
marised, the  plot  seems  preposterous ;  and  it 
cannot,  I  think,  be  denied  that  it  is  in  some 
degree  mechanical.  Is  not  this  a  fault  to  which 
those  novelists  in  France  who  throw  in  their  lot 
with  the  disciples  of  Balzac  are  peculiarly  liable  ? 

Plot,  however,  in  our  trivial  sense,  is  the  least 
matter  about  which  M.  Bourget  troubles  himself. 
He  is  occupied  with  two  things  :  the  presentation 
of  his  thesis — we  may  almost  say  his  propaganda 
— and  the  conduct  of  his  personages  when  face  to 
face  in  moments  of  exalted  spiritual  excitement. 
In  the  past,  he  has  sometimes  shirked  the  clash 
of  these  crises,  as  if  shrinking  a  little  from  the 
mere  physical  disturbance  of  them.  But  he  does 
not  do  so  in  VEtape,  which  will  be  found  "  awfully 
thrilling,"  even  by  the  Hildas  of  the  circulating 
libraries.     In  the  study  of  the  "  Union  Tolstoi," 


M.   PAUL  BOURGET         265 

which  is  a  sort  of  Toynbee  Hall,  founded  in  the 
heart  of  Paris  by  Cremieu-Dax  (a  curious  re- 
miniscence, whether  conscious  or  not,  of  our  own 
Leonard  Montefiore),  M.  Bourget  is  led  away  by 
the  blindness  of  his  exclusive  fanaticism.  A  lighter 
touch,  a  little  of  the  playfulness  of  humour,  would 
have  rendered  more  probable  and  human  this 
humanitarian  club  of  Jews  and  Protestants  and 
Anarchists  and  faddists,  united  in  nothing  but  in 
their  enmity  to  the  ancient  government  and  faith 
of  France.  And  the  ruin  of  the  "  Union  Tolstoi " 
is  shown  to  be  so  inevitable,  that  we  are  left  to 
wonder  how  it  could  ever  have  seemed  to  flourish. 

The  portraits  in  the  book,  however,  are  neither 
mechanical  nor  hard.  The  old  Monneron,  gentle, 
learned,  and  humane,  but  bound  hand  and  foot  by 
his  network  of  political  prejudices  ;  the  impudent 
Antoine  ;  Julie,  the  type  of  the  girl  emancipated 
on  Anglo-American  lines,  and  doomed  to  violent 
catastrophe  ;  the  enthusiastic  and  yet  patient,  fana- 
tical and  yet  tender  millionaire  socialist,  Solomon 
Cr^mieu-Dax  ;  in  a  lesser  degree  the  unfortunate 
Abb6  Chanut,  who  believes  that  the  democracy 
can  be  reconciled  to  the  Church — all  these  are 
admirable  specimens  of  M.  Bourget's  art  of  por- 
traiture. The  novel  is  profoundly  interesting, 
although  hardly  addressed  to  those  who  run 
while  they  read  ;  but  it  must  not  be  taken  as 
a  text-book  of  the  state  of  France  without  a 
good  deal  of  counteracting  Republican  literature. 
Yet  it  is  a  document  of  remarkable  value  and  a 
charming  work  of  art. 

1902. 


M.    RENE   BAZIN 

When  I  was  young  I  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing 
a  prominent  Plymouth  Brother,  an  intelligent  and 
fanatical  old  gentleman,  into  whose  house  there 
strayed  an  attractive  volume,  which  he  forbade  his 
grown-up  son  and  daughter  to  peruse.  A  day  or 
two  later,  his  children,  suddenly  entering  his  library, 
found  him  deep  in  the  study  of  the  said  dangerous 
book,  and  gently  upbraided  him  with  doing  what 
he  had  expressly  told  them  not  to  do.  He  replied, 
with  calm  good-humour,  "  Ah  !  but  you  see  I  have 
a  much  stronger  spiritual  digestion  than  you  have!" 
This  question  of  the  "  spiritual  digestion  "  is  one 
which  must  always  trouble  those  who  are  asked  to 
recommend  one  or  another  species  of  reading  to 
an  order  of  undefined  readers.  Who  shall  decide 
what  books  are  and  what  books  are  not  proper  to 
be  read  ?  There  are  some  people  who  can  pasture 
unpoisoned  upon  the  memoirs  of  Casanova,  and 
others  who  are  disturbed  by  The  Idyls  of  the  King. 
They  tell  me  that  in  Minneapolis  Othello  is  con- 
sidered objectionable  ;  our  own  great-aunts  thought 
Jane  Eyre  no  book  for  girls.  In  the  vast  compli- 
cated garden  of  literature  it  is  always  difficult  to 
say  where  the  toxicologist  comes  in,  and  what  dis- 
tinguishes him  from  the  purveyor  of  a  salutary 
moral  tonic.      In  recent  French  romance,  every- 

366 


M.    RENE    BAZIN  267 

body  must  acknowledge,  it  is  practically  impossible 
to  lay  down  a  hard  and  fast  rule. 

The  object  of  this  chapter,  however,  is  not  to 
decide  how  far  the  daring  apologist  can  go  in  the 
recommendation  of  new  French  novel-writers,  but 
to  offer  to  the  notice  of  shy  English  readers  a  par- 
ticularly "  nice  "  one.  But,  before  attempting  to 
introduce  M.  Ren6  Bazin,  I  would  reflect  a  moment 
on  the  very  curious  condition  of  the  French  novel 
in  general  at  the  present  time.  No  one  who  ob- 
serves the  entire  field  of  current  French  literature 
without  prejudice  will  deny  that  the  novel  is  pass- 
ing through  a  period  which  must  prove  highly 
perilous  to  its  future,  a  period  at  once  of  transition 
and  of  experiment.  The  school  of  realism  or 
naturalism,  which  was  founded  upon  the  prac- 
tice of  Balzac  in  direct  opposition  to  the  prac- 
tices of  George  Sand  and  of  DumB.s  pere,  achieved, 
about  twenty  years  ago,  one  of  those  violent  vic- 
tories which  are  more  dangerous  to  a  cause  than 
defeat  itself.  It  was  in  1880  that  M.  Zola  pub- 
lished that  volume  of  polemical  criticism  which 
had  so  far-reaching  an  effect  in  France  and  else- 
where, and  which  was  strangely  ignored  in  England 
— Le  Roman  Experimental.  This  was  just  the  point 
of  time  at  which  the  Rougon-Macquart  series  of 
socio-pathological  romances  was  receiving  its  maxi- 
mum of  hostile  attention.  M.  Zola's  book  of  criti- 
cism was  a  plausible,  audacious,  magnificently 
casuistical  plea,  not  merely  for  the  acceptance  of 
the  realistic  method,  but  for  the  exclusion  of  every 
other  method  from  the  processes  of  fiction.  It 
had   its  tremendous  effect ;    during  the   space  of 


268  FRENCH    PROFILES 

some  five  years  the  "  romanciers  naturalistes,"  with 
M.  Zola  at  their  head,  had  it  all  their  own  way. 
Then  came,  in  1885,  La  Terre,  an  object-lesson  in 
the  abuse  of  the  naturalistic  formula,  and  people 
began  to  open  their  eyes  to  its  drawbacks.  And 
then  we  all  dissolved  in  laughter  over  the  protest 
of  the  "  cinq  purs,"  and  the  defection  of  a  whole 
group  of  disciples.  M.  Zola,  like  the  weary  Titan 
that  he  was,  went  on,  but  the  prestige  of  naturalism 
was  undermined. 

But,  meanwhile,  the  old  forms  of  procedure  in 
romance  had  been  dishonoured.  It  was  not  enough 
that  the  weak  places  in  the  realistic  armour  should 
be  pierced  by  the  arrows  of  a  humaner  criticism  ; 
the  older  warriors  whom  Goliath  had  overthrown 
had  to  be  set  on  their  legs  again.  And  it  is  not 
to  be  denied  that  some  of  them  were  found  to  be 
dreadfully  the  worse  for  wear.  No  one  who  had 
read  Flaubert  and  the  Goncourts,  no  one  who  had 
been  introduced  to  Tolstoi  and  Dostoieffsky,  could 
any  longer  endure  the  trick  of  Cherbuliez.  It  was 
like  going  back  to  William  Black  after  Stevenson 
and  Mr.  Barrie.  Even  Ferdinand  Fabre,  the 
Thomas  Hardy  of  the  Cevennes,  seemed  to  have 
lost  his  savour.  The  novels  of  Octave  Feuillet 
were  classics,  but  no  one  yearned  for  fresh  imita- 
tions of  Monsieur  de  Camors.  Pierre  Loti  turned 
more  and  more  exclusively  to  adventures  of  the 
ego  in  tropical  scenery.  Alphonse  Daudet,  after 
a  melancholy  eclipse  of  his  fresh  early  genius, 
passed  away.  Even  before  the  death  of  Edmond, 
the  influence  of  the  Goncourts,  although  still 
potent,  spread  into  other  fields  of  intellectual  effort, 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  269 

and  became  negligible  so  far  as  the  novel,  pure 
and  simple,  was  concerned.  What  was  most  note- 
worthy in  the  French  belles-lettres  of  ten  years  ago 
was  the  brilliant  galaxy  of  critics  that  swam  into 
our  ken.  In  men  like  MM.  Lemaitre,  Anatole 
France,  Brunetiere  and  Gaston  Paris,  the  intel- 
ligent reader  found  purveyors  of  entertainment 
which  was  as  charming  as  fiction,  and  much  more 
solid  and  stimulating.  Why  read  dull  novels  when 
one  could  be  so  much  better  amused  by  a  new 
volume  of  La  Vie  Litteraire  ? 

In  pure  criticism  there  is  now  again  a  certain 
depression  in  French  literature.  The  most  brilliant 
of  the  group  I  have  just  mentioned  has  turned 
from  the  adventures  of  books  to  the  analysis  of 
life.  But  the  author  of  L'Anneau  cCAmethyste  is 
hardly  to  be  counted  among  the  novelists.  His 
philosophical  satires,  sparkling  with  wit  and  malice, 
incomparable  in  their  beauty  of  expression,  are 
doubtless  the  most  exquisite  productions  proceed- 
ing to-day  from  the  pen  of  a  Frenchman,  but 
L'Orme  du  Mail  is  no  more  a  novel  than  Friend- 
ship's Garland  is.  Among  the  talents  which  were 
directly  challenged  by  the  theories  of  the  natural- 
istic school,  the  one  which  seems  to  have  escaped 
least  battered  from  the  fray  is  that  of  M.  Paul 
Bourget.  He  stands  apart,  like  Mr.  Henry  James 
— the  European  writer  with  whom  he  is  in  closest 
relation.  But  even  over  this  delicious  writer  a 
certain  change  is  passing.  He  becomes  less  and 
less  a  novelist,  and  more  and  more  a  writer  of 
nouvelles  or  short  stories.  La  Duchesse  Bleue  was 
not  a  roman,  it  was  a  nouvelle  writ  large,  and  in  the 


270  FRENCH    PROFILES 

volume  of  consummate  studies  of  applied  psy- 
chology {Un  Homme  d' Affaires),  which  reaches  me 
as  I  write  these  lines,  I  find  a  M.  Paul  Bourget 
more  than  ever  removed  from  the  battle-field  of 
common  fiction,  more  than  ever  isolated  in  his 
exquisite  attenuation  of  the  enigmas  of  the  human 
heart.  On  the  broader  field,  M.  Marcel  Provost 
and  M.  Paul  Hervieu  support  the  Balzac  tradition 
after  their  strenuous  and  intelligent  fashion.  It  is 
these  two  writers  who  continue  for  us  the  manu- 
facture of  the  "  French  novel "  pure  and  simple. 
Do  they  console  us  for  Flaubert  and  Maupassant 
and  Goncourt  ?  Me,  I  am  afraid,  they  do  as  yet 
but  faintly  console. 

Elsewhere,  in  the  French  fiction  with  which  the 
century  is  closing,  we  see  little  but  experiment, 
and  that  experiment  largely  takes  the  form  of 
pastiche.  One  thing  has  certainly  been  learned  by 
the  brief  tyranny  of  realism,  namely,  that  the  mere 
exterior  phenomena  of  experience,  briefly  observed, 
do  not  exhaust  the  significance  of  life.  It  is  not 
to  be  denied  that  a  worthy  intellectual  effort,  a 
desire  to  make  thought  take  its  place  again  in 
aesthetic  literature,  marks  the  tentatives,  often  very 
unsatisfactory  in  themselves  and  unrelated  to  one 
another,  which  are  produced  by  the  younger  nove- 
lists in  France.  These  books  address,  it  must  never 
be  forgotten,  an  audience  far  more  cultivated,  far 
less  hide-bound  in  its  prejudices,  than  does  the 
output  of  the  popular  English  novelist.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  a  British  Huysmans  translating, 
with  the  utmost  disregard  for  plot,  the  voluptuous 
languors  of  religion  ;  it  is  even  more  difficult  to 


M.    RENE    BAZIN  271 

conceive  of  a  British  Maurice  Barres  engaged,  in 
the  form  of  fiction,  in  the  glorification  of  a  theory 
of  individuaUsm.  It  is  proper  that  we  should  do 
honour  to  the  man  who  writes  and  to  the  public 
that  reads,  with  zeal  and  curiosity,  these  attempts 
to  deal  with  spiritual  problems  in  the  form  of 
fiction.  But  it  is  surely  not  unfair  to  ask  whether 
the  experiment  so  courageously  attempted  is  per- 
fectly successful  ?  It  is  not  improper  to  suggest 
that  neither  La  Cathedrak  nor  Les  De'racine's  is  exactly 
to  be  styled  an  ideal  novel. 

More  completely  fulfilling  the  classic  purpose  of 
the  romance,  the  narrative,  are  some  of  the  experi- 
mental works  in  fiction  which  I  have  indicated  as 
belonging  to  the  section  of  pastiche.  In  this  class 
I  will  name  but  three,  the  Aphrodite  of  M.  Pierre 
Louys,  La  Nichina  of  M.  Hugues  Rebell,  and  La 
Route  d'J^meraude  of  M.  Eugene  Demolder.  These, 
no  doubt,  have  been  the  most  successful,  and  the 
most  deservedly  successful,  of  a  sort  of  novel  in 
these  last  years  in  France,  books  in  which  the  life 
of  past  ages  has  been  resuscitated  with  a  full  sense 
of  the  danger  which  lurks  in  pedantry  and  in  a 
didactic  dryness.  With  these  may  be  included  the 
extraordinary  pre-historic  novels  of  the  brothers 
Rosny.  This  kind  of  story  suffers  from  two  dan- 
gers. Firstly,  nothing  so  soon  loses  its  pleasur- 
able surprise,  and  becomes  a  tiresome  trick,  as 
pastiche.  Already,  in  the  case  of  more  than  one 
of  the  young  writers  just  mentioned,  fatigue  of 
fancy  has  obviously  set  in.  The  other  peril  is  a 
heritage  from  the  Naturalists,  and  makes  the  dis- 
cussion of  recent  French  fiction  extremely  difficult 


272  FRENCH    PROFILES 

in  England,  namely,  the  determination  to  gain  a 
sharp,  vivid  effect  by  treating,  with  surgical  cool- 
ness, the  maladies  of  society.  Hence — to  skate  as 
lightly  as  possible  over  this  thin  ice — the  difficulty 
of  daring  to  recommend  to  English  readers  a  single 
book  in  recent  French  fiction.  We  have  spoken 
of  a  strong  spiritual  digestion  ;  but  most  of  the 
romances  of  the  latest  school  require  the  digestion 
of  a  Commissioner  in  Lunacy  or  of  the  matron  in  a 
Lock  hospital. 

Therefore — and  not  to  be  always  pointing  to  the 
Quaker-coloured  stories  of  M.  Edouard  Rod — the 
joy  and  surprise  of  being  able  to  recommend, 
without  the  possibility  of  a  blush,  the  latest  of  all 
the  novelists  of  France.  It  has  been  necessary,  in 
the  briefest  language,  to  sketch  the  existing  situa- 
tion in  French  fiction,  in  order  to  make  appreciable 
the  purity,  the  freshness,  the  simplicity  of  M.  Ren6 
Bazin.  It  is  only  within  the  last  season  or  two 
that  he  has  come  prominently  to  the  front,  although 
he  has  been  writing  quietly  for  about  fifteen  years. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  exaggerate.  M.  Bazin  is 
not,  and  will  not  be  here  presented  as  being,  a 
great  force  in  literature.  If  it  were  the  part  of 
criticism  to  deal  in  negatives,  it  would  be  easy  to 
mention  a  great  many  things  which  M.  Bazin  is 
not.  Among  others,  he  is  not  a  profound  psy- 
chologist ;  people  who  like  the  novels  of  M. 
El^mir  Bourges,  and  are  able  to  understand  them, 
will,  unquestionably,  pronounce  Les  Noellet  and  La 
Sarcelle  Bleue  very  insipid.  But  it  is  possible  that 
the  French  novelists  of  these  last  five  years  have 
been  trying  to  be  a  great  deal  too  clever,  that  they 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  273 

have  starved  the  large  reading  public  with  the 
extravagant  intellectuality  of  their  stories.  Whether 
that  be  so  or  not,  it  is  at  least  pleasant  to  have 
one  man  writing,  in  excellent  French,  refined, 
cheerful,  and  sentimental  novels  of  the  most  ultra- 
modest  kind,  books  that  every  girl  may  read,  that 
every  guardian  of  youth  may  safely  leave  about  in 
any  room  of  the  house.  I  do  not  say — I  am  a 
thousand  miles  from  thinking — that  this  is  every- 
thing ;  but  I  protest — even  in  face  of  the  indignant 
Bar  of  Bruges— that  this  is  much. 

Little  seems  to  have  been  told  about  the  very 
quiet  career  of  M.  Ren6  Bazin,  who  is  evidently 
an  enemy  to  self-advertisement.  He  was  born  at 
Angers  in  1853,  and  was  educated  at  the  little 
seminary  of  Montgazon.  Of  his  purely  literary 
career  all  that  is  known  appears  to  be  that  in  1886 
he  published  a  romance.  Ma  Tante  Giron,  to  which 
I  shall  presently  return,  which  fell  almost  un- 
noticed from  the  press.  It  found  its  way,  how- 
ever, to  one  highly  appropriate  reader,  M.  Ludovic 
Hal^vy,  to  whom  its  author  was  entirely  unknown, 
M.  Hal^vy  was  so  much  struck  with  the  cleanliness 
and  the  freshness  of  this  new  writer  that  he  recom- 
mended the  editor  of  the  "  Journal  des  D^bats  "  to 
secure  him  as  a  contributor.  To  the  amazement 
of  M.  Bazin,  he  was  invited,  by  a  total  stranger,  to 
join  the  staff  of  the  "  Debats."  He  did  so,  and  for 
that  newspaper  he  has  written  almost  exclusively 
ever  since,  and  there  his  successive  novels  and 
books  of  travel  have  first  appeared.  It  is  said  that 
M.  Hal^vy  tried,  without  success,  to  induce  the 
French  Academy  to  give  one  of  its  prizes  to  Ma 

S 


274  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Tante  Giron.  That  attempt  failed,  but  no  doubt  it 
was  to  the  same  admirer  that  was  due  the  crowning 
of  M.  Ren6  Bazin's  second  story,  Une  Tache  d'Encre. 
One  can  hardly  doubt  that  the  time  is  not  far 
distant  when  M.  Bazin  will  himself  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  secure  the  prizes  of  the  Academy  for  still 
younger  aspirants.  This  account  of  M.  Bazin  is 
meagre  ;  but  although  it  is  all  that  I  know  of  his 
blameless  career,  I  feel  sure  that  it  is,  as  Froude 
once  said  on  a  parallel  occasion,  "  nothing  to  what 
the  angels  know." 

When  we  turn  to  M.  Bazin's  earliest  novel.  Ma 
Tante  Giron,  it  is  not  difficult  to  divine  what  it  was 
that  attracted  to  this  stranger  the  amiable  author  of 
L Abbe  Constantin  and  Monsieur  et  Madame  Cardinal. 
It  is  a  sprightly  story  of  provincial  life,  a  dish,  as 
was  wickedly  said  of  one  of  M.  Hal^vy's  own 
books,  consisting  of  nothing  but  angels  served  up 
with  a  white  sauce  of  virtue.  The  action  is  laid 
in  a  remote  corner  of  Western  France,  the  Craonais, 
half  in  Vendue,  half  in  Brittany.  There  are  fine 
old  sporting  characters,  who  bring  down  hares  at 
fabulous  distances  to  the  reproach  of  younger 
shots  ;  there  are  excellent  cur^s,  the  souls  of 
generosity  and  unworldliness,  with  a  touch  of 
eccentricity  to  keep  them  human.  There  is  an 
admirable  young  man,  the  Baron  Jacques,  who 
falls  desperately  in  love  with  the  beautiful  and 
modest  Mademoiselle  de  Seigny,  and  has  just 
worked  himself  up  to  the  point  of  proposing, 
when  he  unfortunately  hears  that  she  has  become 
the  greatest  heiress  in  the  country-side.  Then, 
of  course,  his  honourable  scruples  overweigh  his 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  275 

passion,  and  he  takes  to  a  capricious  flight.  Made- 
moiselle de  Seigny,  who  loves  him,  will  marry  no 
one  else,  and  both  are  horribly  unhappy,  until 
Aunt  Giron,  who  is  the  comic  providence  of  the 
tale,  rides  over  to  the  Baron's  retreat,  and  brings 
him  back,  a  blushing  captive,  to  the  feet  of  the 
young  lady.  All  comes  well,  of  course,  and  the 
curtain  falls  to  the  sound  of  wedding  bells,  while 
Aunt  Giron,  brushing  away  a  tear,  exclaims,  "  La 
joie  des  autres,  comme  cela  fait  du  bien  ! " 

But  Ma  Tante  Giron  is  really  the  least  bit  too 
ingenuous  for  the  best  of  good  little  girls.  Hence 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  M.  Bazin's  next  novel 
at  the  same  time  less  provincial  and  less  artless. 
It  is  very  rare  for  a  second  book  to  show  so 
remarkable  an  advance  upon  a  first  as  Une  Tache 
dEncre  does  upon  its  predecessor.  This  is  a  story 
which  may  be  recommended  to  any  reader,  of 
whatever  age  or  sex,  who  wishes  for  a  gay,  good- 
humoured  and  well-constructed  tale,  in  which  the 
whole  tone  and  temper  shall  be  blameless,  and  in 
which  no  great  strain  shall  be  put  upon  the  intel- 
lectual attention.  It  is  excellently  carpentered  ;  it 
is  as  neatly  turned-out  a  piece  of  fiction-furniture 
as  any  one  could  wish  to  see.  It  has,  moreover, 
beyond  its  sentimental  plot,  a  definite  subject.  In 
Une  Tache  dEncre  the  perennial  hostility  between 
Paris  and  the  country-town,  particularly  between 
Paris  and  the  professional  countryman,  is  used, 
with  excellent  effect,  to  hang  an  innocent  and 
recurrent  humour  upon.  Fabian  Mouillard,  an 
orphan,  has  been  educated  by  an  uncle,  who  is  a 
family  lawyer  at  Bourges.     He  has  been  brought 


276  FRENCH    PROFILES 

up  in  the  veneration  of  the  office,  with  the  fixed 
idea  that  he  must  eventually  carry  on  the  profes- 
sion, in  the  same  place,  among  the  same  clients  ; 
he  is  a  sort  of  Dauphin  of  the  basoche,  and  it  has 
never  been  suggested  to  him  that  he  can  escape 
from  being  his  uncle's  successor.  But  Fabian 
comes  up  to  Paris,  that  dangerous  city,  hatred  and 
fear  of  which  have  been  most  carefully  instilled 
into  him.  He  still  continues,  however,  to  be  as 
good  as  gold,  when  a  blot  of  ink  changes  the 
whole  current  of  his  life.  He  is  engaged  in  com- 
posing a  thesis  on  the  Junian  Latins,  a  kind  of 
slaves  whose  status  in  ancient  Rome  offers  curious 
difficulties  to  the  student  of  jurisprudence.  To 
inform  himself  of  history  in  this  matter  he  attends 
the  National  Library,  and  there,  one  afternoon,  he 
is  so  unlucky  (or  so  lucky)  as  to  flip  a  drop  of  ink 
by  accident  on  to  a  folio  which  is  in  act  of  being 
consulted  by  M.  Flamaran,  of  the  Academy  of 
Moral  and  Political  Sciences.  M.  Flamaran  is  a 
very  peppery  old  pedant,  and  he  is  so  angry  that 
Fabian  feels  obliged  to  call  upon  him,  at  his 
private  house,  with  a  further  apology.  The  fond 
reader  will  be  prepared  to  learn  that  M.  Flamaran, 
who  is  a  widower,  lives  with  a  very  charming 
daughter,  and  that  she  keeps  house  for  him. 

The  course  of  true  love  then  runs  tolerably 
smoothly.  The  virtuous  youth  without  a  profes- 
sion timidly  woos  the  modest  maiden  without  a 
mamma,  and  all  would  go  well  were  it  not  for  the 
fierce  old  solicitor  at  Bourges.  M.  Flamaran  will 
give  his  daughter  if  Fabian  will  live  in  Paris  ;  but 
the  uncle  will  accept  no  niece  unless  the  young 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  277 

couple  will  settle  in  the  country.  The  eccentric 
violence  of  M.  Mouillard  gives  the  author  occasion 
for  a  plentiful  exercise  of  that  conventional  wit 
about  lawyers  which  never  fails  to  amuse  French 
people,  which  animates  the  farces  of  the  Renaissance, 
and  which  finds  its  locus  classicus  in  the  one  great 
comedy  of  Racine.  There  follows  a  visit  to  Italy, 
very  gracefully  described  ;  then  a  visit  to  Bourges, 
very  pathetical  and  proper  ;  and,  of  course,  the 
end  of  it  all  is  that  the  uncle  capitulates  in  snuff 
and  tears,  and  comes  up  to  Paris  to  end  his  days 
with  Fabian  and  his  admirable  wife.  A  final  con- 
versation lifts  the  veil  of  the  future,  and  we  learn 
that  the  tact  and  household  virtues  of  the  bride 
are  to  make  the  whole  of  Fabian's  career  a  honey- 
moon. 

The  same  smoothness  of  execution,  the  same 
grace  and  adroitness  of  narrative,  which  render 
Une  Tache  d^Encre  as  pleasant  reading  as  any  one 
of  Mr.  W.  E.  Norris's  best  society  stories,  are  dis- 
covered in  La  Sarcelle  Bleue,  in  which,  moreover, 
the  element  of  humour  is  not  absent.  As  a  typical 
interpreter  of  decent  French  sentiment,  at  points 
where  it  is  markedly  in  contrast  with  English 
habits  of  thought,  this  is  an  interesting  and  even 
an  instructive  novel.  We  are  introduced,  in  a 
country-house  of  Anjou,  to  an  old  officer,  M. 
Guillaume  Maldonne,  and  his  wife,  and  their  young 
daughter,  Th^rdse.  With  these  excellent  people 
lives  Robert  de  K^r^dol,  an  old  bachelor,  also  a 
retired  officer,  the  lifelong  friend  of  Maldonne. 
The  latter  is  an  enthusiastic  ornithologist,  and 
keeper  of  the  museum  of  natural  history  in  the 


278  FRENCH    PROFILES 

adjoining  country-town.  His  ambition  is  to  pos- 
sess a  complete  collection  of  the  birds  of  the 
district,  and  the  arrival  of  Robert  de  Keredol  is 
due  to  a  letter  inviting  him  to  come  to  Anjou  and 
bring  his  gun.  He  has  just  been  wounded  in 
Africa,  and  the  invitation  is  opportune.  He  arrives, 
and  so  prolongs  his  visit  that  he  becomes  a  member 
of  the  household  : — 

'<  Robert  recovered,  and  was  soon  in  a  fit  state 
to  go  out  with  his  friend.  And  then  there  began 
for  both  of  them  the  most  astonishing  and  the 
most  fascinating  of  Odysseys.  Each  felt  some- 
thing of  the  old  life  return  to  him  ;  adventure,  the 
emotion  of  the  chase,  the  need  to  be  on  the  alert, 
shots  that  hit  or  missed,  distant  excursions,  nights 
beneath  the  stars.  All  private  estates,  princely 
domains,  closed  parks,  opened  their  gates  to  these 
hunters  of  a  new  type.  What  mattered  it  to  the 
proprietor  most  jealous  of  his  rights  if  a  rare 
woodpecker  or  butcher-bird  was  slaughtered  ? 
Welcomed  everywhere,  feted  everywhere,  they 
ran  from  one  end  of  the  department  to  the  other, 
through  the  copses,  the  meadows,  the  vineyards, 
the  marshlands.  Robert  did  not  shoot,  but  he 
had  an  extraordinary  gift  for  divining  that  a  bird 
had  passed,  for  discovering  its  traces  or  its  nest, 
for  saying  casually,  '  Guillaume,  I  feel  that  there 
are  woodcock  in  the  thickets  under  that  clump  of 
birches ;  the  mist  is  violet,  there  is  an  odour  of 
dead  leaves  about  it.'  Or,  when  the  silver  Spring, 
along  the  edges  of  the  Loire,  wakens  all  the  little 
world  of  clustered  buds,  he  was  wonderful  in  per- 
ceiving, motionless  on  a  point  of  the  shore,  a  ruff 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  279 

with  bristling  plumage,  or  even,  posed  between 
two  alder  catkins,  the  almost  imperceptible  blue 
Hnnet." 

It  follows  that  this  novel  is  the  romance  of 
ornithology,  and  in  its  pleasantest  pages  we  follow 
the  fugitive  "humeur  d'oiseau."  To  the  local 
collection  at  last  but  one  treasure  is  lacking.  The 
Blue  Teal  (perhaps  a  relative  of  the  Blue  Linnet) 
is  known  to  be  claimed  among  the  avifauna  of 
Anjou,  but  Maldonne  and  K^r^dol  can  never  come 
within  earshot  of  a  specimen.  Such  is  the  state  of 
affairs  when  the  book  opens.  Without  perceiving 
the  fact,  the  exquisite  child  Th^rese  Maldonne  has 
become  a  woman,  and  Robert  de  K^redol,  who 
thinks  that  his  affection  for  her  is  still  that  of  an 
adopted  uncle,  wakens  to  the  perception  that  he 
desires  her  for  his  wife.  Docile  in  her  inexperi- 
ence and  in  her  maidenly  reserve,  Th^rese 
accustoms  her  mind  to  this  idea,  but  at  the  death- 
bed of  a  village  child,  her  prot6g6,  she  meets  an 
ardent  and  virtuous  young  gentleman  of  her  own 
age,  Claude  Revel,  and  there  is  love  almost  at  first 
sight  between  them. 

In  France,  however,  and  especially  in  the  pro- 
vinces, the  advances  of  Cupid  must  be  made  with 
extreme  decorum.  Revel  is  not  acquainted  with 
M.  Maldonne,  and  how  is  he  to  be  introduced  ? 
He  is  no  zoologist,  but  he  hears  of  the  old  col- 
lector's passion  for  rare  birds,  and  shooting  a 
squirrel,  he  presents  himself  with  its  corpse  at  the 
Museum.  He  is  admitted,  indeed,  but  with  some 
scorn  ;  and  is  instructed,  in  a  high  tone,  that  a 
squirrel    is   not   a   bird,    nor  even   a   rarity.       He 


28o  FRENCH    PROFILES 

receives  this  information  with  a  touching  lowHness 
of  heart,  and  expresses  a  thirst  to  know  more. 
The  zoologist  pronounces  him  marvellously  igno- 
rant, indeed,  but  ripe  for  knowledge,  and  deigns 
to  take  an  interest  in  him.  By  degrees,  as  a  rising 
young  ornithologist,  he  is  introduced  into  the 
family  circle,  where  Ker^dol  instantly  conceives  a 
blind  and  rude  jealousy  of  him.  Th^rese,  on  the 
contrary,  is  charmed,  but  he  gets  no  closer  to  her 
parents.  It  is  explained  to  him  at  last  by  Th^rese 
that  his  only  chance  is  to  present  himself  as  a 
suitor,  with  a  specimen  of  the  Blue  Teal  in  his 
hands.  Then  we  follow  him  on  cold  mornings, 
before  daybreak,  in  a  punt  on  the  reedy  reaches  of 
the  Loire  ;  and  the  gods  are  good  to  him,  he  pots 
a  teal  of  the  most  cerulean  blueness.  Even  as  he 
brings  it  in,  K^redol,  an  incautious  lago,  snatches 
it  from  him,  and  spoils  it.  But  now  the  scales  fall 
from  everybody's  eyes  ;  Ker^dol  writes  a  long 
letter  of  farewell,  and  disappears,  while  Th^rese, 
after  some  coy  raptures,  is  ceremoniously  betrothed 
to  the  enchanted  Claude  Revel.  It  is  not  suggested 
that  he  goes  out  any  longer,  searching  for  blue 
teal,  of  a  cold  and  misty  morning.  La  Sarcelle 
Bleue  is  a  very  charming  story,  only  spoiled  a  little, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  by  the  unsportsmanlike  violence 
of  Robert  de  K^redol's  jealousy,  which  is  hardly 
in  keeping  with  his  reputation  as  a  soldier  and  a 
gentleman. 

As  he  has  advanced  in  experience,  M.  Rene 
Bazin  has  shown  an  increasing  ambition  to  deal 
with  larger  problems  than  are  involved  in  such 
innocent  love  intrigues    as  those  which  we  have 


M.    RENfi    BAZIN  281 

just  briefly  analysed.  But  in  doing  so  he  has, 
with  remarkable  persistency,  refrained  from  any 
realisation  of  what  are  called  the  seamy  sides  of 
life.  In  De  Toute  son  Ame  he  attempted  to  deal 
with  the  aspects  of  class-feeling  in  a  large  pro- 
vincial town,  and  in  doing  so  was  as  cautious  as 
Mrs,  Gaskell  or  as  Anthony  Trollope.  This  story, 
indeed,  has  a  very  curious  resemblance  in  its  plan 
to  a  class  of  novel  familiar  to  English  readers 
of  half  a  century  ago,  and  hardly  known  outside 
England.  One  has  a  difficulty  in  persuading 
oneself  that  it  has  not  been  written  in  direct 
rivalry  with  such  books  as  Mary  Barton  and  John 
Halifax,  Gentleman.  It  is  a  deliberate  effort  to  pre- 
sent the  struggle  of  industrial  life,  and  the  contrasts 
of  capital  and  labour,  in  a  light  purely  pathetic  and 
sentimental.  To  readers  who  remember  how  this 
class  of  theme  is  usually  treated  in  France — with 
so  much  more  force  and  colour,  perhaps,  but  with 
a  complete  disregard  of  the  illusions  of  the  heart — 
the  mere  effort  is  interesting.  In  the  case  of  De 
Toute  son  Ante  the  motive  is  superior  to  the  execu- 
tion. M.  Bazin,  greatly  daring,  does  not  wholly 
succeed.  The  Latin  temper  is  too  strong  for  him, 
the  absence  -  of  tradition  betrays  him  ;  in  this 
novel,  ably  constructed  as  it  is,  there  is  a  certain 
insipid  tone  of  sentimentality  such  as  is  common 
enough  in  English  novels  of  the  same  class,  but 
such  as  the  best  masters  amongst  us  have  avoided. 
True  to  his  strenuous  provinciality,  M,  Bazin 
does  not  take  Paris  as  his  scene,  but  Nantes. 
That  city  and  the  lucid  stretches  of  the  vast  Loire, 
now  approaching  the  sea,  offer  subjects  for  a  series 


282  FRENCH    PROFILES 

of  accurate  and  picturesque  drop-scenes.  The 
plot  of  the  book  itself  centres  in  a  great  factory, 
in  the  ateliers  and  the  usines  of  the  rich  firm  of 
Lemarie,  one  of  the  most  wealthy  and  prosperous 
industrials  of  Nantes.  Here  one  of  the  artisans  is 
Uncle  Eloi,  a  simple  and  honest  labourer  of  the 
better  class,  who  has  made  himself  the  guardian 
of  his  orphan  nephew  and  niece,  Antoine  and 
Henriette  Madiot.  These  two  young  people  are 
two  types — the  former  of  the  idle,  sly,  and  vicious 
ne'er-do-well,  the  latter  of  all  that  is  most  indus- 
trious, high-minded  and  decently  ambitious.  But 
Henriette  is  really  the  illegitimate  daughter  of  the 
proprietor  of  the  works,  M.  Lemari6,  and  his  son 
Victor  is  attracted,  he  knows  not  why,  by  a 
fraternal  instinct,  to  the  admirable  Henriette. 
She  is  loved  by  a  countryman,  the  tall  and  hand- 
some Etienne,  reserved  and  silent.  The  works  in 
Nantes  are  burned  down,  by  the  spite  of  Antoine, 
who  has  turned  anarchist.  Lemarie,  the  selfish 
capitalist,  is  killed  by  a  stroke  of  apoplexy  on 
hearing  the  news.  His  widow,  a  woman  of  deep 
religion,  gives  the  rest  of  her  life  to  good  works, 
and  is  aided  in  her  distributions  by  Henriette,  who 
finds  so  much  to  do  for  others,  in  the  accumula- 
tion of  her  labours  for  their  welfare,  that  her  own 
happiness  can  find  no  place,  and  the  silent  Etienne 
goes  back  to  his  country  home  in  his  barge.  De 
Toute  son  Ame  is  a  well-constructed  book,  full  of 
noble  thoughts  ;  and  the  sale  of  some  twenty  large 
editions  proves  that  it  has  appealed  with  success 
to  a  wide  public  in  France.  But  we  are  accus- 
tomed  in    England,    the    home   of  sensibility,  to 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  283 

guard,  with  humour  and  with  a  fear  of  the  absurd, 
against  being  swept  away  on  the  full  tide  of  senti- 
ment, and  perhaps  this  sort  of  subject  is  better 
treated  by  a  Teutonic  than  by  a  Latin  mind.  At 
all  events,  De  Toute  son  Ante,  the  most  English  of 
M.  Bazin's  novels,  is  likely  to  be  the  one  least 
appreciated  in  England. 

A  very  characteristic  specimen  of  M.  Bazin's 
deliberate  rejection  of  all  the  conventional  spices 
with  which  the  French  love  to  heighten  the  flavour 
of  their  fiction,  is  found  in  the  novel  called  Madame 
Corenttne,  a  sort  of  hymn  to  the  glory  of  devoted 
and  unruffled  matrimony.  This  tale  opens  in  the 
island  of  Jersey,  where  Madame  Corentine  L'H^r^ec 
is  discovered  keeping  a  bric-a-brac  shop  in  St. 
Heliers,  in  company  with  her  thirteen-year-old 
daughter,  Simone.  Madame  L'H^r^ec  is  living 
separated  from  her  husband,  but  M.  Bazin  would 
not  be  true  to  his  parti  pris  if  he  even  suggested 
that  there  had  been  any  impropriety  of  moral  con- 
duct on  either  side.  On  the  contrary,  husband 
and  wife  are  excellent  alike,  only,  unhappily,  there 
has  been  a  fatal  incompatibility  of  temper,  exacer- 
bated by  the  husband's  vixen  mother.  Corentine 
was  a  charming  girl  of  Perros  in  Brittany  ;  M. 
L'H^r^ec,  a  citizen  of  the  neighbouring  town  of 
Lannion.  Now  he  remains  in  Lannion,  and  she 
has  taken  refuge  in  Jersey  ;  no  communication 
passes  between  them.  But  the  child  Simone  longs 
to  see  her  father,  and  she  sends  him  a  written 
word  by  a  Breton  sailor.  Old  Capt.  Guen, 
Corentine's  widowed  father,  writes  to  beg  her  to 
come  to  Perros,  where  her  younger  sister,  Marie 


284  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Anne,  has  married  the  skipper  of  a  fishing-vessel. 
Pressed  by  Simone,  the  mother  consents  to  go, 
although  dreading  the  approach  to  her  husband. 
She  arrives  to  find  her  sister's  husband,  SulHan, 
drowned  at  sea,  and  the  father  mourns  over  two 
daughters,  one  of  whom  is  a  widow  and  the  other 
separated  from  her  man.  But  Sullian  comes  back 
to  life,  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  little 
Simone,  the  L'Hereecs  are  brought  together,  even 
the  wicked  old  mother-in-law  getting  her  fangs 
successively  drawn.  The  curtain  falls  on  a  scene 
of  perfect  happiness,  a  general  "  Bless  ye,  my 
children  "  of  melodrama. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  charming  description  in 
this  book,  both  the  Jersey  and  the  Lannion  and 
Perros  scenes  being  painted  in  delightful  colours. 
A  great  part  of  the  novel  is  occupied  with  the 
pathos  of  the  harvest  of  the  sea,  the  agony  of 
Breton  women  who  lose  their  husbands,  brothers 
and  sons  in  the  fisheries.  Here  M.  Bazin  comes 
into  direct  competition  with  a  greater  magician, 
with  Pierre  Loti  in  his  exquisite  and  famous 
Pecheur  d'Islande.  This  is  a  comparison  which  is 
inevitably  made,  and  it  is  one  which  the  younger 
novelist,  with  all  his  merits,  is  not  strong  enough 
to  sustain.  On  the  other  hand,  the  central  subject 
of  the  novel,  the  development  of  character  in  the 
frivolous  and  tactless  but  essentially  good-hearted 
Corentine,  is  very  good,  and  Simone  is  one  of  the 
best  of  M.  Bazin's  favourite  "girlish  shapes  that 
slip  the  bud  in  lines  of  unspoiled  symmetry."  It 
is  not  possible  for  me  to  dwell  here  on  Les  Noellet, 
a.   long    novel    about    provincial     society   in    the 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  285 

Angevin  district  of  the  Vendue,  nor  on  Humble 
Amour,  a  series  of  six  short  stories,  all  (except 
Les  Trots  Peines  d'un  Rossigno/,  a  fantastic  dream 
of  Naples)  dealing  with  Breton  life,  because  I 
must  push  on  to  a  consideration  of  a  much  more 
important  work. 

The  most  successful,  and  I  think  the  best,  of  M. 
Ren6  Bazin's  books,  is  the  latest.  When  La  Terre 
qui  Meurt  was  published  in  1899,  there  were  not  a 
few  critics  who  said  that  here  at  last  was  a  really 
great  novel.  There  is  no  doubt,  at  all  events,  that 
the  novelist  has  found  a  subject  worthy  of  the 
highest  talent.  That  subject  briefly  is  the  draining 
of  the  village  by  the  city.  He  takes,  in  La  Terre 
qui  Meurt,  the  agricultural  class,  and  shows  how 
the  towns,  with  their  offices,  caf6s,  railway  stations 
and  shops,  are  tempting  it  away  from  the  farms, 
and  how,  under  the  pressure  of  imported  produce, 
the  land  itself,  the  ancient,  free  prerogative  of 
France,  the  inalienable  and  faithful  soil,  is  dying 
of  a  slow  disease.  To  illustrate  this  heroic  and 
melancholy  theme,  M.  Bazin  takes  the  history  of  a 
farm  in  that  flat  district  occupying  the  north-west 
of  the  department  of  the  Vendue,  between  the 
sandy  shore  of  the  Atlantic  and  the  low  hills  of  the 
Bocage,  which  is  called  Le  Marais.  This  is  a 
curious  fragment  of  France,  traversed  by  canals,  a 
little  Holland  in  its  endless  horizons,  broken  up  by 
marshes  and  pools,  burned  hard  in  summer,  floated 
over  by  icy  fogs  in  winter,  a  country  which,  from 
time  immemorial,  has  been  proud  of  its  great 
farms,  and  where  the  traditions  of  the  soil  have 
been  more  conservative  than  anywhere  else.     Of 


286  FRENCH    PROFILES 

this  tract  of  land,  the  famous  Marais  Vend^en, 
with  its  occasional  hill-town  looking  out  from  a 
chalky  island  over  a  wild  sea  of  corn  and  vines  and 
dwarf  orchards  to  the  veritable  ocean  far  away  in 
the  west,  M.  Bazin  gives  an  enchanting  picture.  It 
may  be  amusing  to  note  that  his  landscape  is  as 
exact  as  a  guide-book,  and  that  Sallertaine,  Challans, 
St.  Gilles,  and  the  rest  are  all  real  places.  If  the 
reader  should  ever  take  the  sea-baths  at  Sables 
d'Olonne,  he  may  drive  northward  and  visit  for  him- 
self "la  terre  qui  meurt"  in  all  its  melancholy  beauty. 
The  scene  of  the  novel  is  an  ancient  farm, 
called  La  Fromenti^re  (even  this,  by  the  way,  is 
almost  a  real  name,  since  it  is  the  channel  of 
Fromentine  which  divides  all  this  rich  rnarsh-Iand 
from  the  populous  island  of  Noirmoutiers).  This 
farmstead  and  the  fields  around  it  have  belonged 
from  time  immemorial  to  the  family  of  Lumineau. 
Close  by  there  is  a  chateau,  which  has  always  been 
in  the  possession  of  one  noble  family,  that  of  the 
Marquis  de  la  Fromenti^re.  The  aristocrats  at  the 
castle  have  preserved  a  sort  of  feudal  relation  to 
the  farmers,  as  they  to  the  labourers,  the  demo- 
cratisation  of  society  in  France  having  but  faintly 
extended  to  these  outlying  provinces.  But  hard 
times  have  come.  All  these  people  live  on  the 
land,  and  the  land  can  no  longer  support  them. 
The  land  cannot  adapt  itself  to  new  methods,  new 
traditions  ;  it  is  the  most  unaltering  thing  in  the 
world,  and  when  pressure  comes  from  without  and 
from  within,  demanding  new  ideas,  exciting  new 
ambitions,  the  land  can  neither  resist  nor  change, 
it  can  only  die. 


M.   RENE    BAZIN  287 

Consequently,  when  La  Terre  qui  Meurt  opens, 
the  Marquis  and  his  family  have  long  ceased  to 
inhabit  their  chateau.  They  have  passed  away  to 
Paris,  out  of  sight  of  the  peasants  who  respected 
and  loved  them,  leaving  the  park  untended  and  the 
house  empty.  Toussaint  Lumineau,  the  farmer, 
who  owns  La  Fromentiere,  is  a  splendid  specimen 
of  the  old,  heroic  type  of  French  farmer,  a  man 
patriarchal  in  appearance,  having  in  his  blood, 
scarcely  altered  by  the  passage  of  time,  the  pre- 
judices, the  faiths,  and  the  persistencies  of  his 
ancient  race.  No  one  of  his  progenitors  has  ever 
dreamed  of  leaving  the  land.  The  sons  have 
cultivated  it  by  the  side  of  the  fathers  ;  the 
daughters  have  married  into  the  families  of  neigh- 
bouring farms,  and  have  borne  sons  and  daughters 
for  the  eternal  service  of  the  soil.  The  land  was 
strong  enough  and  rich  enough  ;  it  could  support 
them  all.  But  now  the  virtue  has  passed  out  of 
the  land.  It  is  being  killed  by  trains  from  Russia 
and  by  ships  from  America  ;  the  phylloxera  has 
smitten  its  vineyards,  the  shifting  of  markets  has 
disturbed  the  easy  distribution  of  its  products. 
And  the  land  never  adapts  itself  to  circumstances, 
never  takes  a  new  lease  of  life,  never  "  turns  over 
a  new  life."  If  you  trifle  with  its  ancient,  immut- 
able conditions,  there  is  but  one  thing  that  the  land 
can  do — it  can  die. 

The  whole  of  La  Terre  qui  Meurt  shows  how, 
without  violence  or  agony,  this  sad  condition  pro- 
ceeds at  La  Fromentiere.  Within  the  memory  of 
Toussaint  Lumineau  the  farm  has  been  prosperous 
and   wealthy.     With   a   wife   of  the    old,  capable 


288  FRENCH    PROFILES 

class,  with  three  strong  sons  and  two  wholesome 
daughters,  all  went  well  in  the  household.  But, 
gradually,  one  by  one,  the  props  are  removed,  and 
the  roof  of  his  house  rests  more  and  more  heavily 
on  the  old  man's  own  obstinate  persistence.  What 
will  happen  when  that,  too,  is  removed  ?  For  the 
eldest  son,  a  Hercules,  has  been  lamed  for  life  by 
a  waggon  which  passed  over  his  legs  ;  the  second 
son  and  the  elder  daughter,  bored  to  extinction  by 
the  farm  life,  steal  away,  the  one  to  a  wretched 
post  at  a  railway  station,  the  other  to  be  servant 
in  a  small  restaurant,  both  infinitely  preferring  the 
mean  life  in  a  country  town  to  the  splendid  solitude 
of  the  ancestral  homestead.  Toussaint  is  left  with 
his  third  son,  Andre,  a  first-rate  farmer,  and  with 
his  younger  daughter,  Rousille.  In  each  of  these 
the  genuine  love  of  the  soil  survives. 

But  Andr6  has  been  a  soldier  in  Africa,  and  has 
tasted  of  the  sweetness  of  the  world.  He  pines  for 
society  and  a  richer  earth,  more  sunlight  and  a 
wider  chance  ;  and,  at  length,  with  a  breaking 
heart,  not  daring  to  confide  in  his  proud  old 
father,  he,  too,  steals  away,  not  to  abandon  the 
tillage  of  the  earth,  but  to  practise  it  on  a  far 
broader  scale  in  the  fertile  plains  of  the  Argentine. 
The  eldest  son,  the  cripple,  dies,  and  the  old 
Toussaint  is  left,  abandoned  by  all  save  his  younger 
daughter,  in  whom  the  heroic  virtue  of  the  soil 
revives,  and  who  becomes  mistress  of  the  farm  and 
the  hope  of  the  future.  And  happiness  comes  to 
her,  for  Jean  Nesmy,  the  labourer  from  the  Bocage, 
whom  her  father  has  despised,  but  whom  she  has 
always  loved,  contrives  to  marry  Rousille  at  the 


M.   RENfi    BAZIN  289 

end  of  the  story.  But  the  Marquis  is  by  this  time 
completely  ruined,  and  the  estates  are  presently  to 
be  sold.  The  farms,  which  have  been  in  his  family 
for  centuries,  will  pass  into  other  hands.  What 
will  be  the  result  of  this  upon  the  life  at  La 
Fromentiere  ?  That  remains  to  be  seen  ;  that 
will  be  experienced,  with  all  else  that  an  economic 
revolution  brings  in  its  wake,  by  the  children  of 
Rousille. 

A  field  in  which  M.  Ren6  Bazin  has  been  fer- 
tile almost  from  the  first  has  been  the  publication 
in  the  "  D6bats,"  and  afterwards  in  book-form,  of 
short,  picturesque  studies  of  foreign  landscape, 
manners  and  accomplishment.  He  began  with  A 
fAventure,  a  volume  of  sketches  of  modern  Italian 
life,  which  he  expanded  a  few  years  later  in  Les 
Italiens  dAujourd'hui.  Perhaps  the  best  of  all  these 
volumes  is  that  called  Sicile,  a  record  of  a  tour 
along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  Malta, 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Sicily,  north- 
ward along  Calabria  and  so  to  Naples.  In  no  book 
of  M.  Bazin's  are  his  lucid,  cheerful  philosophy  and 
his  power  of  eager  observation  more  eminently 
illustrated  than  in  Sicile.  A  tour  which  he  made 
in  Spain  during  the  months  of  September  and 
October,  1894,  was  recorded  in  a  volume  entitled 
Terre  cCEspagne.  Of  late  he  has  expended  the  same 
qualities  of  sight  and  style  on  the  country  parts  of 
France,  the  western  portion  of  which  he  knows 
with  the  closest  intimacy.  He  has  collected  these 
impressions — sketches,  short  tales,  imaginary  con- 
versations— in  two  volumes.  En  Province,  1896, 
and  Croquis  de  France,  1899.     In  1898  he  accom- 

T 


290         FRENCH     PROFILES 

panied,  or  rather  pursued,  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
on  his  famous  journey  to  Jerusalem,  and  we  have 
the  result  in  Croquis  d'Orient.  In  short,  M.  Bazin, 
who  has  undertaken  all  these  excursions  in  the 
interests  of  the  great  newspaper  with  which  he  is 
identified,  is  at  the  present  moment  one  of  the 
most  active  literary  travellers  in  France,  and  his 
records  have  exactly  the  same  discreet,  safe  and 
conciliatory  qualities  which  mark  his  novels. 
Wherever  M.  Bazin  is,  and  whatever  he  writes, 
he  is  always  eminently  sage. 

We  return  to  the  point  from  which  we  started. 
Whatever  honours  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  the  author  of  La  Terre  qui  Meurty  it  is  not  to  be 
believed  that  he  will  ever  develop  into  an  author 
dangerous  to  morals.  His  stories  and  sketches 
might  have  been  read,  had  chronology  permitted, 
by  Mrs.  Barbauld  to  Miss  Hannah  More.  Mrs. 
Chapone,  so  difficult  to  satisfy,  would  have  rejoiced 
to  see  them  in  the  hands  of  those  cloistered  virgins, 
her  long-suffering  daughters.  And  there  is  not,  to 
my  knowledge,  one  other  contemporary  French 
author  of  the  imagination  who  could  endure  that 
stringent  test.  M.  Bazin's  novels  appeal  to  persons 
of  a  distinctly  valetudinarian  moral  digestion. 
With  all  this,  they  are  not  dull,  or  tiresome,  or 
priggish.  They  preach  no  sermon,  except  a  broad 
and  wholesome  amiability  ;  they  are  possessed  by 
no  provoking  propaganda  of  virtue.  Simply,  M. 
Bazin  sees  the  beauty  of  domestic  life  in  France, 
is  fascinated  by  the  charm  of  the  national  gaiety 
and  courtesy,  and  does  not  attempt  to  look  below 
the  surface. 


M.    RENfi    BAZIN  291 

We  may  find  something  to  praise,  as  well  as 
perhaps  something  to  smile  at,  in  this  chaste  and  sur- 
prising optimism.  In  a  very  old-fashioned  book, 
that  nobody  reads  now,  Alfred  de  Musset's  Confes- 
sion dun  Enfant  du  Steele,  there  is  a  phrase  which 
curiously  prefigures  the  ordinary  French  novelist 
of  to-day.  "  Voyez,"  says  the  hero  of  that  work, 
"  voyez  comme  ils  parlent  de  tout :  toujours  les 
termes  les  plus  crus,  les  plus  grossiers,  les  plus 
abjects  ;  ceux-la  seulement  leur  paraissent  vrais ; 
tout  le  reste  n'est  que  parade,  convention  et  pr6- 
jug6s.  Qu'ils  racontent  une  anecdote,  qu'ils  ren- 
dent  compte  de  ce  qu'ils  ont  6prouv6, — toujours 
le  mot  sale  et  physique,  toujours  la  lettre,  tou- 
jours la  mort."  What  an  exact  prediction  ;  and 
it  is  to  the  honour  of  M.  Bazin  that  all  the  faults 
of  judgment  and  proportion  which  are  here  so 
vigorously  stigmatised  are  avoided  by  his  pure  and 
comfortable  talent. 


1901. 


M.   HENRI    DE    REGNIER 

Les  Jeux  Rustiques  et  Divins 

The  determination  of  the  younger  French  writers 
to  enlarge  and  develop  the  resources  of  their 
national  poetry  is  a  feature  of  to-day,  far  too 
persistent  and  general  to  be  ignored.  Until  a 
dozen  years  ago,  the  severely  artificial  prosody 
accepted  in  France  seemed  to  be  one  of  the 
literary  phenomena  of  Europe  the  most  securely 
protected  from  possible  change.  The  earliest 
proposals  and  experiments  in  fresh  directions 
were  laughed  at,  and  often  not  undeservedly. 
No  one  outside  the  fray  can  seriously  admit  that 
any  one  of  the  early  francs-tireurs  of  symbolism 
made  a  perfectly  successful  fight.  But  the  num- 
ber of  these  volunteers,  and  their  eagerness,  and 
their  intense  determination  to  try  all  possible 
doors  of  egress  from  their  too  severe  palace  of 
traditional  verse,  do  at  last  impress  the  observer 
with  a  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  instinct 
which  drives  them  to  these  eccentric  manifesta- 
tions. Renan  said  of  the  early  Decadents  that 
they  were  a  set  of  babies,  sucking  their  thumbs. 
But  these  people  are  getting  bald,  and  have  grey 
beards,  and  still  they  suck  their  thumbs.  There 
must  be  something  more  in  the  whole  thing 
than  met  the  eye  of  the  philosopher.     When  the 


M.    HENRI    DE    R^GNIER    293 

entire  poetic  youth  of  a  country  such  as  France 
is  observed  raking  the  dust-heaps,  it  is  probable 
that  pearls  are  to  be  discovered. 

It  cannot  but  be  admitted  that  M.  Henri  de 
R^gnier  has  discovered  a  large  one,  if  it  seems 
to  be  a  little  clouded,  and  perhaps  a  little  flawed. 
Indeed,  of  the  multitude  of  experiment-makers  and 
theorists,  he  comes  nearest  (it  seems  to  me)  to 
presenting  a  definitely  evolved  talent,  lifted  out 
of  the  merely  tentative  order.  He  stands,  at  this 
juncture,  half-way  between  the  Parnassians  and 
those  of  the  symbolists  who  are  least  violent  in 
their  excesses.  If  we  approach  M.  de  R^gnier 
from  the  old-fashioned  camp,  his  work  may  seem 
bewildering  enough,  but  if  we  reach  it  from  the 
other  side — say,  from  M.  Rene  Ghil  or  from 
M.  Yvanho6  Rambosson — it  appears  to  be  quite 
organic  and  intelligible.  Here  at  least  is  a  writer 
with  something  audible  to  communicate,  with  a 
coherent  manner  of  saying  it,  and  with  a  definite 
style.  A  year  or  two  ago,  the  publication  of  his 
Poemes  Anciens  et  Romanesques  raised  M.  de  R^g- 
nier,  to  my  mind,  a  head  and  shoulders  above 
his  fellows.  That  impression  is  certainly  streng- 
thened by  Les  Jetix  Rustiques  et  Divins,  a.  volume  full 
of  graceful  and  beautiful  verses.  Alone,  among 
the  multitude  of  young  experimenters,  M.  de 
R^gnier  seems  to  possess  the  classical  spirit ;  he 
is  a  genuine  artist,  of  pure  and  strenuous  vision. 
For  years  and  years,  my  eloquent  and  mysterious 
friend,  M.  St6phane  Mallarm^,  has  been  talking 
about  verse  to  the  youth  of  Paris.  The  main 
result  of  all  those  abstruse  discourses  has   been 


294  FRENCH     PROFILES 

(so  it  seems  to  me)  the  production  of  M.  Henri 
de  R^gnier.  He  is  the  soHtary  swallow  that 
makes  the  summer  for  which  M.  Mallarm6  has 
been  so  passionately  imploring  the  gods. 

M.  Henri  de  R^gnier  was  born  at  Honfleur  in 
1864,  and  about  1885  became  dimly  perceptible 
to  the  enthusiastic  by  his  contributions  to  those 
little  revues,  self-sacrificing  tributes  to  the  Muses, 
which  have  formed  such  a  pathetic  and  yet  such 
an  encouraging  feature  of  recent  French  literature. 
He  collected  these  scattered  verses  in  tiny  and 
semi-private  pamphlets  of  poetry,  but  it  was  not 
until  1894  that  he  began  to  attract  general  atten- 
tion and  that  opposition  which  is  the  compliment 
time  pays  to  strength.  It  was  in  that  year  that 
M.  de  R^gnier  published  Ardthuse,  in  which  were 
discovered  such  poems  as  Peroratson  : — 

"  O  lac  pur,  j'ai  jete  mes  flutes  dans  tes  eaux, 

Que  quelque  autre,  h  son  tour,  les  retrouve,  roseaux, 
Sur  le  bord  pastoral  oil  leurs  tiges  sont  ndes 
Et  vertes  dans  I'Avril  d'une  plus  belle  Annee  ! 
Que  toute  la  foret  referme  son  automne 
Mysterieux  sur  le  lac  pale  ou  j'abandonne 
Mes  flfites  de  jadis  mortes  au  fond  des  eaux. 
Le  vent  passe  avec  des  feuilles  et  des  oiseaux 
Au-dessus  du  bois  jaune  et  s'en  va  vers  la  Mer  ; 
Et  je  veux  que  ton  icre  ecume,  6  flot  amer, 
Argente  mes  cheveux  et  fleurisse  ma  joue  ; 
Et  je  veux,  debout  dans  I'aurore,  sur  la  proue, 
Saisir  le  vent  qui  vibre  aux  cordes  de  la  lyre, 
Et  voir,  aupr^s  des  Sir^nes  qui  les  attirent 
A  I'dcueil  ou  sans  lui  nous  naufragerions, 
Le  Dauphin  serviable  aux  calmes  Arions." 

But  the  vogue  of  his  melancholy  and  metaphysical 
poetry,  with  its  alabastrine  purity,  its  sumptuous 


M.   HENRI    DE    RfiGNIER     295 

richness,  began  when  the  poet  finally  addressed  the 
world  at  large  in  two  collections  of  lyrical  verse, 
entitled  Poentes  Anciens  et  Romanesques  (1896)  and 
Les  Jeux  Rustiques  et  Divins  (1897),  when  it  was 
admitted,  even  by  those  who  are  the  most  jealous 
guardians  of  the  tradition  in  France,  that  M.  Henri 
de  R^gnier  represented  a  power  which  must  be 
taken  for  the  future  into  serious  consideration. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  ourselves,  in 
reading  Les  Jeux  Rustiques  et  Divins^  of  the  Mallar- 
mean  principle  that  poetry  should  suggest  and  not 
express,  that  a  series  of  harmonious  hints  should 
produce  the  effect  of  direct  clear  statement.  In 
the  opposite  class,  no  better  example  can  be 
suggested  than  the  sonnets  of  M.  de  Heredia, 
which  are  as  transparent  as  sapphires  or  topazes, 
and  as  hard.  But  if  M.  de  Regnier  treats  the 
same  class  of  subject  as  M.  de  Heredia  (and  he 
often  does)  the  result  is  totally  different.  He  pro- 
duces an  opal,  something  clouded,  soft  in  tone,  and 
complex,  made  of  conflicting  shades  and  fugitive 
lights.  In  the  volume  before  us  we  have  a  long 
poem  on  the  subject  of  Arethusa,  the  nymph  who 
haunted  that  Ortygian  well  where,  when  the  flutes 
of  the  shepherds  were  silent,  the  sirens  came  to 
quench  their  thirst.  We  have  been  so  long 
habituated,  in  England  by  the  manner  of  Keats 
and  Tennyson,  in  France  by  the  tradition  6i  the 
Parnassians,  to  more  or  less  definite  and  ex- 
haustive portraiture,  that  at  first  we  read  this 
poetry  of  M.  de  Regnier  without  receiving  any 
impression.  All  the  rhythms  are  melodious,  all 
the   diction    dignified    and    pure,   all    the    images 


296  FRENCH    PROFILES 

appropriate,  but,  until  it  has  been  carefully  re-read, 
the  poem  seems  to  say  nothing.  It  leaves  at  first 
no  imprint  on  the  mind  ;  it  merely  bewilders  and 
taunts  the  attention. 

It  is  difficult  to  find  a  complete  piece  short 
enough  for  quotation  which  shall  yet  do  no  in- 
justice to  the  methods  of  M.  de  R6gnier  ;  but  In- 
vocation Memoriale  may  serve  our  purpose  : — 

"  La  main  en  vous  touchant  se  crispe  et  se  contracte 
Aux  veines  de  I'onyx  et  aux  nceuds  de  I'agate, 
Vases  nus  que  I'amour  en  cendre  a  faits  des  umes  ! 
O  coupes  tristes  que  je  soup^se,  une  k  une, 
Sans  sourire  aux  beautes  des  socles  et  des  anses  ! 
O  passe  longuement  ou  je  goute  en  silence 
Des  poisons,  des  memoires  acres  ou  le  philtre 
Qu'avec  le  souvenir  encor  I'espoir  infiltre 
Goutte  k  goutte  puise  k  d'ameres  fontaines  ; 
Et,  ne  voyant  que  lui  et  elles  dans  moi-meme, 
Je  regarde,  la-bas,  par  les  fenetres  hautes, 
L'ombre  d'un  cypres  noir  s'allonger  sur  les  roses." 

The  studied  eccentricity  of  the  rhymes  may  be 
passed  over  ;  if  fontaines  and  meme,  hautes  and 
roses,  satisfy  a  French  ear,  it  is  no  business  of  an 
English  critic  to  comment  on  it.  But  the  dimness 
of  the  sense  of  this  poem  is  a  feature  which  we 
may  discuss.  At  first  reading,  perhaps,  we  shall 
find  that  the  words  have  left  no  mark  behind 
them  whatever.  Read  them  again  and  yet  again, 
and  a  certain  harmonious  impression  of  liquid 
poetic  beauty  will  disengage  itself,  something 
more  in  keeping  with  the  effect  on  the  mind  of 
the  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn,  or  the  close  of  the 
Scholar  Gypsy,  than  of  the  purely  Franco-Hel- 
lenic   poetry    of    Andr6    Ch^nier    or    of    Leconte 


M.    HENRI    DE    RfiGNIER     297 

de  Lisle.  Throughout  this  volume  what  is  pre- 
sented is  a  faint  tapestry  rather  than  a  picture 
— dim  choirs  of  brown  fauns  or  cream-white 
nymphs  dancing  in  faint,  mysterious  forests, 
autumnal  foliage  sighing  over  intangible  stretches 
of  winding,  flashing  river  ;  Pan  listening,  the  pale 
Sirens  singing,  Autumn  stumbling  on  under  the 
burden  of  the  Hours,  thyrsus  and  caduceus  flung 
by  unseen  deities  on  the  velvet  of  the  shaven 
lawn — everywhere  the  shadow  of  poetry,  not  its 
substance,  the  suggestion  of  the  imaginative  act  in 
a  state  of  suspended  intelligence.  Nor  can  beauty 
be  denied  to  the  strange  product,  nor  to  the  poet 
his  proud  boast  of  the  sanction  of  Pegasus  : — 

"  J'ai  vu  le  cheval  rose  ouvrir  ses  ailes  d'or 
Et,  flairant  le  laurier  que  je  tenais  encor, 
Verdoyant  k  jamais  hier  comme  aujourd'hui, 
Se  cabrer  vers  le  Jour  et  ruer  vers  la  Nuit." 
1896. 

La  Cite  des  Eaux 

It  may  be  conceded  that  the  publication  of  a 
new  volume  by  M.  Henri  de  R^gnier  is,  for  the 
moment,  the  event  most  looked  forward  to  in  the 
poetical  world  of  France.  The  great  poets  of  an 
elder  generation,  though  three  or  four  of  them 
survive,  very  rarely  present  anything  novel  to 
their  admirers,  and  of  the  active  and  numerous 
body  of  younger  writers  there  is  no  one,  certainly 
among  those  who  are  purely  French  by  birth, 
whose  work  offers  so  little  to  the  doubter  and  the 
detractor  as  that  of  M.  de  R^gnier.  He  has  been 
before  the  public  for  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  ; 


298  FRENCH    PROFILES 

his  verse  is  learned,  copious,  varied  and  always 
distinguished.  Like  all  the  younger  poets  of 
France,  he  has  posed  as  a  revolutionary,  and 
has  adopted  a  new  system  of  aesthetics,  and  in 
particular  an  emancipated  prosody.  But  he  has 
carried  his  reforms  to  no  absurd  excess  ;  he  has 
kept  in  touch  with  the  tradition,  and  he  has  never 
demanded  more  liberty  than  he  required  to  give 
ease  to  the  movements  of  his  genius.  By  the 
side  of  the  fanatics  of  the  new  schools  he  has  often 
seemed  conservative  and  sometimes  almost  re- 
actionary. He  has  always  had  too  much  to  say 
and  too  great  a  joy  in  saying  it  to  be  forever 
fidgeting  about  his  apparatus. 

M.  Henri  de  Regnier  is  much  nearer  in  genius 
to  the  Parnassians  than  any  other  of  his  immediate 
contemporaries.  If  he  had  been  born  a  quarter 
of  a  century  earlier,  doubtless  he  would  be  a 
Parnassian.  In  his  earliest  verses  he  showed  him- 
self a  disciple  of  M.  Sully-Prudhomme.  But  that 
was  a  purely  imitative  strain,  it  would  seem,  since 
in  the  developed  writing  of  M.  de  Regnier  there  is 
none  of  the  intimate  analysis  of  feeling  and  the 
close  philosophic  observation  which  characterise 
the  exquisite  author  of  Les  Vatnes  Tendresses.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  M.  de  Heredia  we  have  a  Par- 
nassian whose  objective  genius  is  closely  allied,  on 
several  sides,  to  that  of  the  younger  poet.  The 
difference  is  largely  one  of  texture  ;  the  effects  of 
M.  de  Heredia  are  metallic,  those  of  M.  de  Regnier 
supple  and  silken.  A  certain  hardness  of  outline, 
which  impairs  for  some  readers  the  brilliant 
enamel  or  bronze  of  Les  Trophees  is  exchanged 
in  Les  Jeux  Rustiques  et  Divins  and   Les   Medailles 


M.    HENRI    DE    R^GNIER     299 

d'Argile  for  a  softer  line,  drowned  in  a  more 
delicate  atmosphere.  This  does  not  prevent  M. 
de  Heredia  and  M.  de  R^gnier  from  being  the 
poets  in  whom  the  old  and  the  new  school  take 
hands,  and  in  whom  the  historical  transition  may 
be  most  advantageously  studied. 

La  Cite  des  Eaux  emphasises  the  conservative 
rather  than  the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  the 
writer.  In  two  closely  related  directions,  indeed, 
it  shows  a  reaction  against  previous  movements 
made  by  M.  de  R^gnier  somewhat  to  the  discom- 
fort of  his  readers.  In  the  poetry  he  was  writing 
five  or  six  years  ago,  he  seemed  to  be  com- 
pletely subdued  by  two  enchanting  but  extremely 
dangerous  sirens  of  style,  allegory  and  symbol. 
Some  of  the  numbers  in  Les  Jeux  Rustiques  ei  Divins 
were  highly  melodious,  indeed,  and  full  of  colour, 
but  so  allusive  and  remote,  so  determined  always 
to  indicate  and  never  to  express,  so  unintelligible, 
in  short,  and  so  vaporous,  that  the  pleasure  of  the 
reader  was  very  seriously  interfered  with.  The 
fascinating  and  perilous  precepts  of  Mallarm^ 
were  here  seen  extravagantly  at  work.  If  M.  de 
R^gnier  had  persisted  in  pushing  further  and 
further  along  this  nebulous  path,  we  will  not 
venture  to  say  that  he  would  soon  have  lost  him- 
self, but  he  would  most  assuredly  have  begun  to 
lose  his  admirers.  We  are  heartily  glad  that  in 
La  Cite  des  Eaux  he  has  seen  fit  to  return  to  a 
country  where  the  air  is  more  lucid,  and  where 
men  are  no  longer  seen  through  the  vitreous 
gloom  as  trees  walking. 

M.  de  R6gnier  builds  his  rhyme  with  deep  and 
glowing  colour.      In   this  he   is  more  like  Keats 


300  FRENCH     PROFILES 

than  any  other  recent  poet.  Whether  in  the 
mysterious  eclogues  of  antiquity  which  it  used  to 
please  him  to  compose,  or  in  the  simpler  and 
clearer  pieces  of  to-day,  he  is  always  a  follower 
of  dreams.  If  the  French  poets  were  distinguished 
by  flowers,  as  their  Greek  predecessors  were,  the 
brows  of  M.  Henri  de  Regnier  might  be  bound 
with  newly-opened  blossoms  of  the  pomegranate, 
like  those  of  Menecrates  in  the  garland  of  Meleager. 
His  classical  pictures  used  to  be  extraordinarily 
gorgeous,  like  those  in  Keats's  Endymion,  purpureal 
and  over-ripe,  hanging  in  glutinous  succession 
from  the  sugared  stalk  of  the  rhyme.  They  are 
now  more  strictly  chastened,  but  they  have  not 
lost  their  dreamy  splendour. 

The  desolation  of  the  most  beautiful  of  Royal 
gardens  has  attracted  more  and  more  frequently 
of  late  the  curiosity  of  men  of  imagination.  It  in- 
spired this  year  the  fantastic  and  elegant  romance 
of  M.  Marcel  Batilliat,  Versailles-aux-Fantomes. 
But  it  has  found  no  more  exquisite  rendering 
than  the  cycle  of  sonnets  which  gives  its  name  to 
the  volume  before  us.  M.  de  Regnier  wanders 
through  the  pavilions  and  across  the  terraces  of 
Versailles,  and  everywhere  he  studies  the  effect 
of  its  mossed  and  melancholy  waters.  He  be- 
comes hypnotised  at  last,  and  the  very  enclosures 
of  turf  take  the  form  of  pools  to  his  eyes  : — 

"  Le  gazon  toujours  vert  ressemble  au  bassin  glauque. 
C'est  le  meme  carre  de  verdure  equivoque, 
Dont  le  marbre  ou  le  buis  encadrent  I'herbe  ou  I'eau  : 
Et  dans  I'eau  smaragdine  et  I'herbe  d'emeraude, 
Regarde,  tour  k  tour,  errer  en  ors  rivaux 
La  jaune  feuille  morte  et  la  cyprin  qui  rode." 


M.    HENRI    DE    RfiGNIER     301 

The  vast  and  monumental  garden  stretches  itself 
before  us  in  these  sonnets,  with  its  invariable 
alleys  of  cypress  and  box,  its  porcelain  dolphins, 
its  roses  floating  across  the  wasted  marble  of  its 
statues,  the  strange  autumnal  odour  of  its  bos- 
cages and  its  labyrinths,  and,  above  all,  still 
regnant,  the  majestic  and  monotonous  fafade  of 
its  incomparable  palace. 

For  English  readers  the  matchless  choruses  of 
Empedocles  said  the  final  word  in  poetry  about 
Marsyas,  exactly  fifty  years  ago.  M.  de  R^gnier, 
who  has  probably  never  read  Matthew  Arnold, 
has  taken  a  singularly  parallel  view  of  the  story  in 
Le  Sang  de  Marsyas,  where  the  similarity  is  increased 
by  the  fact  that  the  French  poet  adopts  a  form  of 
free  verse  very  closely  analogous  to  that  used  by 
Arnold  in  The  Strayed  Reveller  and  elsewhere. 
The  spirited  odes,  called  La  Course  and  Pan,  have 
the  same  form  and  something  of  the  same  Arnoldian 
dignity.  The  section  entitled  Inscriptions  lues  au 
Soir  Tomhant — especially  those  lines  which  are 
dedicated  to  "  Le  Centaure  Bless6  " — might  have 
been  signed,  in  his  moments  of  most  Hellenic 
expansion,  by  Landor.  It  is  not  an  accident  that 
we  are  so  frequently  reminded,  in  reading  M.  de 
R^gnier's  poems,  of  the  English  masters,  since  he 
is  a  prominent  example  of  that  slender  strain 
which  runs  through  French  verse  from  Ronsard 
to  Andr6  Ch^nier,  and  on  through  Alfred  de 
Vigny,  where  the  Greek  spirit  takes  forms  of 
expression  which  are  really  much  more  English 
than  Latin  in  their  character.  Of  the  purely 
lyrical    section    of    this    charming   volume    it    is 


302  FRENCH     PROFILES 

difficult  to  give  an  impression  witliout  extensive 
quotation.  We  must  confine  ourselves  to  a  single 
specimen,  entitled  La  Lune  Jaune : — 

"  Ce  long  jour  a  fini  par  une  lune  jaune 

Qui  monte  mollement  entre  les  peupliers, 
Tandis  que  se  repand  parmi  I'air  qu'elle  embaume 
L'odeur  de  I'eau  qui  dort  entre  les  joncs  mouilles. 

Savions-nous,  quand,  tous  deux^  sous  le  soleil  torride, 
Foulions  la  terre  rouge  et  le  chaume  blessant, 

Savions-nous,  quand  nos  pieds  sur  les  sables  arides 
Laissaient  leurs  pas  empreints  comme  des  pas  de  sang, 

Savions-nous,  quand  I'amour  brulait  sa  haute  flamme 
En  nos  coeurs  d^chirds  d'un  tourment  sans  espoir, 

Savions-nous,  quand  mourait  le  feu  dont  nous  brulames. 
Que  sa  cendre  serait  si  douce  k  notre  soir, 

Et  que  cet  dpre  jour  qui  s'acheve  et  qu'embaume 
Une  odeur  d'eau  qui  songe  entre  les  joncs  mouilles 

Finirait  mollement  par  cette  lune  jaune 

Qui  monte  et  s'arrondit  entre  les  peupliers  ?  " 

1903. 

Les  Vacances  d'un  Jeune  Homme  Sage 

M.  Henri  de  R6gnier  is  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished living  poets  of  France.  But  in  writing 
Les  Vacances  dun  Jeune  Homme  Sage  he  has  attacked 
a  new  province  of  literature,  and  has  taken  it  by 
storm.  M.  de  R^gnier  has  written  several  novels, — 
La  Double  Maitresse  and  Le  Bon  Plaisir  in  particular 
— which  have  aimed  at  reconstructing  past  eras  of 
society.  These  books  have  been  remarkable  for 
their  ethical  insouciance,  their  rough  and  cynical 
disregard  of  prejudice.  One  has  formed  the  im- 
pression that  M.  Henri  de  R^gnier's  ambition  was 
to  be  a  poet   like   Keats  grafted  upon  a  novelist 


M.    HENRI    DE    RfiGNIER     303 

like  Smollett.  And  the  novels,  with  all  their 
vigour,  were  not  quite  what  we  sympathise  with 
in  this  country.  Curiously  enough,  without  giv- 
ing us  the  least  warning,  M.  de  Regnier  has  written, 
in  a  mood  of  pure  laughter,  a  refined  little  picture 
of  real  life  in  a  provincial  town  of  to-day.  He  is 
deliciously  sympathetic  at  last. 

A  boy  (I  beg  his  pardon — a  young  man)  of 
sixteen,  Georges  Dolonne,  has  the  misfortune  to 
be  plucked  for  his  bachelor's  degree  at  the  Sor- 
bonne.  This  is  due  partly  to  his  shyness,  and 
partly  to  his  pre-occupations,  for  he  is  very  far 
indeed  from  being  stupid.  It  is  rather  a  serious 
check,  however,  but  his  mother  in  her  clemency 
carries  him  away  to  the  country  for  the  holidays, 
to  stay  with  his  great-uncle  and  aunt  at  the  little 
town  of  Rivray-sur-Vince.  The  story  is  simply  a 
plain  account  of  how  Georges  spent  this  vacation, 
but  in  the  course  of  it  every  delightful  eccentricity 
of  the  population  of  Rivray  is  laid  bare.  I  can 
imagine  no  pleasanter  figures  to  spend  a  few  hours 
with  than  M.  de  la  Boulerie,  a  decayed  old  noble- 
man with  a  mania  for  heraldry  ;  or  comfortable 
obese  Madame  de  la  Boulerie,  whose  rich  Avignon 
accent  comes  out  in  moments  of  excitement  ;  or 
Mademoiselle  Duplan,  the  drawing-mistress,  who 
wears  a  huge  hat  with  feathers  in  the  depths  of  her 
own  home  and  dashes  out  every  few  moments  to 
drive  the  boys  from  her  espaliers ;  or  M.  de  la 
Vigneraie,  coarse  and  subtle,  with  his  loud  voice  and 
his  pinchbeck  nobility  and  his  domestic  subterfuges. 

Every  one  will  laugh  with  these  inhabitants  of 
Rivray-sur-Vince,  but  English  readers  must  be  a 


304  FRENCH    PROFILES 

little  philosophical  in  order  to  appreciate  young 
Master  Georges.  It  is  not  a  mere  display  of 
Podsnappery  to  find  him  curiously  exotic  to  our 
ideas  of  decorous  youth.  But  we  ought  to  take 
a  pleasure  in  him  as  a  psychological  specimen, 
although  so  very  unlike  those  which  flourish  in 
our  own  collections.  There  is  no  cricket,  of 
course,  at  Rivray-sur-Vince,  and  no  base-ball  ; 
Georges  neither  rides,  nor  shoots,  nor  even  fishes. 
He  smokes  quantities  of  little  cigarettes,  and  he 
takes  walks,  not  too  far  nor  too  fast,  and  always 
on  the  shady  side.  In  fact,  the  notion  of  physical 
exercise  does  not  enter  into  his  head.  Notwith- 
standing this,  Georges  Dolonne  is  not  a  milksop 
or  a  muff  ;  he  is  simply  a  young  French  gentle- 
man in  an  immature  condition.  Mentally  he  is 
much  more  alert,  much  more  adroit  and  astute, 
than  an  English  boy  in  his  seventeenth  year  would 
be,  and  the  extremely  amusing  part  of  the  book — 
that  part,  indeed,  where  it  rises  to  a  remarkable 
originality — is  where  the  contrast  is  silently  drawn 
between  what  his  relations  and  friends  believe 
Georges  to  be  and  insist  upon  his  being,  and  the 
very  wide-awake  young  person  that  he  really  is. 
The  prominent  place  which  the  appearance  and 
company  of  women  take  in  the  interests  of  a 
young  Frenchman  at  an  age  when  the  English 
youth  has  scarcely  awakened  to  the  existence  of 
an  ornamental  side  to  sex  is  exemplified  very 
acutely,  but  with  a  charming  reserve,  in  Les 
Vacances  d'unjeune  Homme  sage. 

1904. 


FOUR    POETS 

STEPHANE  MALLARME 

In  the  midst  of  the  violent  incidents  which 
occupied  public  attention  during  the  month  of 
September  1898  the  passing  of  a  curious  figure 
in  the  literary  life  of  France  was  almost  un- 
observed. St^phane  Mallarm^  died  on  the  9th  at 
his  cottage  of  Bichenic,  near  Vulaine-sur-Seine, 
after  a  short  illness.  He  was  still  in  the  fulness 
of  life,  having  been  born  i8th  March,  1842,  but  he 
had  long  seemed  fragile.  Five  or  six  years  ago, 
and  at  a  quieter  time,  the  death  of  Mallarm6 
would  have  been  a  newspaper  "  event,"  for  in  the 
early  nineties  his  disciples  managed  to  awaken 
around  his  name  and  his  very  contemplative 
person  an  astonishing  amount  of  curiosity.  This 
culminated  in  and  was  partly  assuaged  by  the 
publication  in  1893  of  his  Vers  et  Prose,  with  a 
dreamy  portrait,  a  lithograph  of  great  beauty,  by 
Mr.  Whistler.  Then  Mallarm6  had  to  take  his 
place  among  things  seen  and  known ;  his  works 
were  no  longer  arcane  ;  people  had  read  He'rodiade, 
and  their  reason  had  survived  the  test.  In  France, 
where  sensations  pass  so  quickly,  Mallarm^  has 
already  long  been  taken  for  granted. 

It  was  part  of  his  resolute  oddity  to  call  himself 
by  the  sonorous  name  of   St^phane,  but   I  have 

305  U 


3o6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

been  assured  that  his  god-parents  gave  him  the 
humbler  one  of  Etienne.  He  was  descended 
from  a  series,  uninterrupted  both  on  the  father's 
and  on  the  mother's  side,  of  officials  connected 
with  the  parochial  and  communal  registers,  and 
Mallarm6  was  the  quite-unexpected  flower  of  this 
sober  vegetation.  He  was  to  have  been  a  clerk 
himself,  but  he  escaped  to  England  about  1862, 
and  returned  to  Paris  only  to  become  what  he 
remained,  professionally,  for  the  remainder  of  his 
life — a  teacher  of  the  English  language.  While 
he  was  with  us  he  learned  to  cultivate  a  passion 
for  boating  ;  and  in  the  very  quiet,  unambitious 
life  of  his  later  years  to  steal  away  to  his  yole 
d'acajou  and  lose  himself,  in  dreaming,  on  one  of 
the  tributaries  of  the  Seine  was  his  favourite, 
almost  his  only,  escapade.  In  1874  or  1875  he 
was  in  London,  and  then  my  acquaintance  with 
him  began.  I  have  a  vision  of  him  now,  the  little, 
brown,  gentle  person,  trotting  about  in  Blooms- 
bury  with  an  elephant  folio  under  his  arm,  trying 
to  find  Mr.  Swinburne  by  the  unassisted  light  of 
instinct. 

This  famous  folio  contained  Edgar  Poe's  Raven, 
translated  by  Mallarm6  and  illustrated  in  the  most 
intimidating  style  by  Manet,  who  was  then  still  an 
acquired  taste.  We  should  to-day  admire  these 
illustrations,  no  doubt,  very  much  ;  I  am  afraid 
that  in  1875,  in  perfidious  Albion,  they  awakened 
among  the  few  who  saw  them  undying  mirth. 
Mallarm^'s  main  design  in  those  days  was  to 
translate  the  poems  of  Poe,  urged  to  it,  I  think, 
by  a  dictum  of  Baudelaire's,  that  such  a  translation 


STfiPHANE   MALLARME     307 

"  peut  etre  un  reve  caressant,  mais  ne  peut  etre 
qu'un  r^ve."  Mallarm^  reduced  it  to  reality,  and  no 
one  has  ever  denied  that  his  version  of  Poe's  poems 
(1888)  is  as  admirably  successful  as  it  must  have 
been  difficult  of  performance.  In  1875  the  Par- 
nasse  Contemporain  rejected  Mallarm^'s  first  impor- 
tant poem,  L! Apres-Midi  (fun  Faune^  and  his  revolt 
against  the  Parnassian  theories  began.  In  1876 
he  suddenly  braved  opinion  by  two  "  couriers  of 
the  Decadence,"  one  the  Faune,  in  quarto,  the 
other  a  reprint  of  Beckford's  Vaihek,  with  a  pre- 
face, an  octavo  in  vellum.  Fortunate  the  biblio- 
phil  of  to-day  who  possesses  these  treasures,  which 
were  received  in  Paris  with  nothing  but  ridicule 
and  are  now  sought  after  like  rubies. 

Extraordinary  persistence  in  an  idea,  and  extra- 
ordinary patience  under  external  discouragement, 
these  were  eminent  characteristics  of  Mallarm6. 
He  was  not  understood.  Well,  he  would  wait  a 
little  longer.  He  waited,  in  fact,  some  seventeen 
years  before  he  admitted  an  ungrateful  public  again 
to  an  examination  of  his  specimens.  Meanwhile, 
in  several  highly  eccentric  forms,  the  initiated  had 
been  allowed  to  buy  Pages  from  his  works  in 
prose  and  verse,  at  high  prices,  in  most  limited 
issues.  Then,  in  1893,  there  was  a  burst  of 
celebrity  and  perhaps  of  disenchantment.  When 
the  tom-toms  and  the  conchs  are  silent,  and  the 
Veiled  Prophet  is  revealed  at  last,  there  is  always 
some  frivolous  person  who  is  disappointed  at  the 
revelation.  Perhaps  Mallarm6  was  not  quite  so 
thrilling  when  his  poems  could  be  read  by  every- 
body as  when  they  could  only  be  gazed  at  through 


3o8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

the  glass  bookcase  doors  of  wealthy  amateurs. 
But  still,  if  everybody  could  now  read  them,  not 
everybody  could  understand  them.  In  1894  the 
amiable  poet  came  over  here,  and  delivered  at 
Oxford  and  at  Cambridge,  cites  savanies,  an  ad- 
dress of  the  densest  Cimmerian  darkness  on  Music 
and  Letters.  In  1897  appeared  a  collection  of 
essays  in  prose,  called  Divagations.  The  diction- 
aries will  tell  the  rest  of  the  story. 

It  seems  quite  impossible  to  conjecture  what 
posterity  will  think  of  the  poetry  of  St^phane 
Mallarm6.  It  is  not  of  the  class  which  rebuffs 
contemporary  sympathy  by  its  sentiments  or  its 
subjects ;  the  difficulty  of  Mallarme  consists 
entirely  in  his  use  of  language.  He  was  allied 
with,  or  was  taken  as  a  master  by,  the  young  men 
who  have  broken  up  and  tried  to  remodel  the 
prosody  of  France.  In  popular  estimation  he 
came  to  be  identified  with  them,  but  in  error  ; 
there  are  no  vers  libres  in  Mallarme.  He  was 
resolutely  misapprehended,  and  perhaps,  in  his 
quiet  way,  he  courted  misapprehension.  But  if 
we  examine  very  carefully  in  what  his  eccentricity 
(or  his  originality)  consisted,  we  shall  find  it  all 
resolving  itself  into  a  question  of  language.  He 
thought  that  the  vaunted  precision  and  lucidity  of 
French  style,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  was 
degrading  the  national  literature  ;  that  poetry  mus- 
preserve,  or  must  conquer,  an  embroidered  gart 
ment  to  distinguish  her  from  the  daily  newspaper. 
He  thought  the  best  ways  of  doing  this  were, 
firstly,  to  divert  the  mind  of  the  reader  from  the 
obvious  and  beaten  paths  of  thought,  and  secondly 


STfiPHANE   MALLARMfi     309 

to  arrange  in  a  decorative  or  melodic  scheme 
words  chosen  or  reverted  to  for  their  peculiar 
dignity  and  beauty. 

It  was  strange  that  Mallarm6  never  saw,  or 
never  chose  to  recognise,  that  he  was  attempting 
the  impossible.  He  went  on  giving  us  intima- 
tions of  what  he  meant,  never  the  thing  itself. 
His  published  verses  are  mere  fallings  from  him, 
vanishings,  blank  misgivings  of  a  creature  moving 
about  in  worlds  not  realised.  They  are  fragments 
of  a  very  singular  and  complicated  system  which 
the  author  never  carried  into  existence.  Mallarm6 
has  left  no  "  works,"  and,  although  he  was  always 
hinting  of  the  Work,  it  was  never  written.  Even 
his  Virgilian  Faune,  even  his  Ovidian  He'rodiade,  are 
merely  suggestions  of  the  solid  Latin  splendour 
with  which  he  might  have  carried  out  a  design 
he  did  no  more  than  indicate.  He  was  a 
wonderful  dreamer,  exquisite  in  his  intuitions 
and  aspirations,  but  with  as  little  creative  power 
as  has  ever  been  linked  with  such  shining  con- 
victions. 

What  effect  will  the  life  and  death  of  Mallarm6 
have  upon  poetry  in  France  ?  Must  it  not  be 
hoped  that  his  influence  may  prove  rather  tem- 
porary and  transitional  than  lasting  ?  He  did 
excellent  peripatetic  service.  His  conversation  and 
example  preserved  alight,  through  a  rather  prosy 
time,  the  lamp  of  poetic  enthusiasm ;  he  was  a 
glowing  ember.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
can  deny  that  his  theories  and  practice,  ill- 
comprehended  as  they  were,  provoked  a  great 
display  of  affectation  and  insincerity  ?     Prose  pour 


3IO  FRENCH    PROFILES 

les  Esseintes  is  a  very  curious  and  interesting  com- 
position ;  but  it  is  not  a  good  model  for  the  young. 
Mallarmd  himself,  so  lucid  a  spirit  if  so  obscure  a 
writer,  was  well  aware  of  this.  People,  he  found, 
were  cocksure  of  what  his  poems  meant  when  the 
interpretation  was  only  dawning  upon  himself  after 
a  generation  of  study.  A  youthful  admirer  once 
told  him,  it  is  said,  that  he  entirely  understood  the 
meaning  of  one  of  his  most  cryptic  publications. 
"  What  a  genius  you  have  ! "  replied  Mallarm6, 
with  his  gentle  smile  ;  "  at  the  age  of  twenty  you 
have  discovered  in  a  week  what  has  baffled  me  for 
thirty  years." 

Some  of  the  eulogies  on  this  poor,  charming 
Mallarm^,  with  his  intense  and  frustrated  aspira- 
tion after  the  perfect  manner,  have  been  a  cruel 
satire  on  his  prestige.  From  one  of  these  mystifi- 
cations I  learn  that  "  with  the  accustomed  Parian 
(flesh  of  death),  Mallarm6  associated  grafts  of  life 
unforeseen,  eyes  of  emerald  or  of  sapphire,  hair 
of  gold  or  silver,  smiles  of  ivory,"  and  that  these 
statues  "  failed  to  fidget  on  their  glued-down  feet, 
because  to  the  brutal  chisel  had  succeeded  a  proud 
and  delicate  shiver  glimmering  through  the  infinite, 
perceptible  to  the  initiated  alone,  like  the  august 
nibbling-away  of  Beauty  by  a  white  mouse  ! "  So 
far  as  Mallarm^  and  his  theories  are  responsible 
for  writing  such  as  this — and  for  the  last  fifteen 
years  his  name  has  been  made  the  centre  for  a 
prodigious  amount  of  the  like  clotted  nonsense — 
even  those  who  loved  and  respected  the  man  most 
cannot  sincerely  wish  that  his  influence  should 
continue. 


STfiPHANE   MALLARMfi     311 

Mallarm^  has  been  employed  as  a  synonym  for 
darkness,  but  he  did  not  choose  this  as  a  distinc- 
tion. He  was  not  like  Donne,  who,  when  Edward 
Herbert  had  been  extremely  crabbed  in  an  elegy 
on  Prince  Henry,  wrote  one  himself  to  "  match," 
as  Ben  Jonson  tells  us,  Herbert  "in  obscureness." 
In  a  letter  to  myself,  some  years  ago,  Mallarm^ 
protested  with  evident  sincerity  against  the  charge 
of  being  Lycophrontic :  "  excepte  par  maladresse 
ou  gaucherie  je  ne  suis  pas  obscur."  Yet  where 
is  obscurity  to  be  found  if  not  in  Don  du  Poeme? 
What  is  dense  if  the  light  flows  freely  through 
Prose  pour  des  Esseintes  ?  Some  of  his  alterations  of 
his  own  text  betray  the  fact  that  he  treated  words 
as  musical  notation,  that  he  was  far  more  inti- 
mately affected  by  their  euphonic  interrelation 
than  by  their  meaning  in  logical  sequence.  In 
my  own  copy  of  Les  Fenfires,  he  has  altered  in 
MS.  the  line 

^'  Que  dore  la  main  chaste  de  I'lnfini " 

to 

"  Que  dore  le  matin  chaste  de  I'lnfini." 

Whether  the  Infinite  had  a  Hand  or  a  Morning 
was  purely  a  question  of  euphony.  So,  what  had 
long  appeared  as  "  mon  exotique  soin "  became 
"  mon  unique  soin."  In  short,  Mallarm^  used 
words,  not  as  descriptive,  but  as  suggestive  means 
of  communication  between  the  writer  and  the 
reader,  and  the  object  of  a  poem  of  his  was 
not  to  define  what  the  poet  was  thinking  about, 
but    to   force    the    listener   to    think   about   it  by 


312  FRENCH    PROFILES 

blocking   up    all  routes   of    impression    save   that 
which  led  to  the  desired  and  indicated  bourne. 

He  was  a  very  delightful  man,  whom  his  friends 
deeply  regret.  He  was  a  particularly  lively  talker, 
and  in  his  conversation,  which  was  marked  by  good 
sense  no  less  than  by  a  singular  delicacy  of  percep- 
tion, there  was  no  trace  of  the  wilful  perversity  of 
his  written  style.  He  had  a  strong  sense  of  hum- 
our, and  no  one  will  ever  know,  perhaps,  how  far 
a  waggish  love  of  mystification  entered  into  his 
theories  and  his  experiments.  He  was  very  much 
amused  when  Verlaine  said  of  him  that  he  "con- 
sid^ra  la  clart6  comme  une  grace  secondaire."  It 
certainly  was  not  the  grace  he  sought  for  first. 
We  may,  perhaps,  be  permitted  to  think  that  he 
had  no  such  profoundly  novel  view  of  nature  or 
of  man  as  justified  procedures  so  violent  as  those 
which  he  introduced.  But,  when  we  were  able 
to  comprehend  him,  we  perceived  an  exquisite 
fancy,  great  refinement  of  feeling  and  an  attitude 
towards  life  which  was  uniformly  and  sensitively 
poetical.  Is  it  not  to  be  supposed  that  when  he 
could  no  longer  be  understood,  when  we  lost 
him  in  the  blaze  of  language,  he  was  really  more 
delightful  than  ever,  if  only  our  gross  senses  could 
have  followed  him  ? 


M.  EMILE  VERHAEREN 

Among  those  poets  who  have  employed  the 
French  tongue  with  most  success  in  recent  years, 
it  is  curious  that  the  two  whose  claims  to  distinc- 


M.   EMILE   VERHAEREN     313 

tion  are  least  open  to  discussion  should  be,  not 
Frenchmen  at  all,  but  Flemings  of  pure  race.  The 
work  of  M.  Verhaeren  has  not  the  amusing  quality 
which  has  given  a  universal  significance  to  the 
dramas  and  treatises  of  M.  Maeterlinck,  and  he 
has  remained  obstinately  faithful  to  the  less  popular 
medium  of  verse.  In  our  English  sense  of  the 
term,  M.  Maeterlinck  is  a  poet  only  upon  occasion, 
while  M.  Verhaeren  never  appears  without  his 
singing-robes  about  him.  By  dint  of  a  remark- 
able persistency  in  presenting  his  talent  character- 
istically to  his  readers,  M.  Verhaeren  has  risen 
slowly  but  steadily  to  a  very  high  eminence.  He 
has  out-lived  the  impression,  which  prevailed  at 
first,  of  ugliness,  of  squalor,  of  a  preoccupation 
with  themes  and  aspects  radically  antipoetical. 
He  has  conquered  us  deliberately,  book  by  book. 
He  has  proved  that  genius  is  its  own  best  judge 
of  what  is  a  good  "subject,"  and  imperceptibly 
we  have  learned  to  appreciate  and  respect  him. 
He  is  true  to  himself,  quite  indefatigable,  and  we 
are  beginning  to  realise  at  last  that  he  is  one  of 
the  very  small  group  of  really  great  poets  born 
in  Europe  since  1850. 

He  has  a  local,  besides  his  universal,  claim  on 
our  respect,  since  he  is  the  pioneer  and  captain 
of  the  brilliant  neo-Belgian  school  which  is  now 
so  active  and  so  prominent.  His  first  book  of 
verses,  Les  Flamandes,  of  1883,  is  curious  to  look 
back  upon.  It  was  thrust  upon  a  perfectly  hostile 
world  of  Brussels,  a  world  with  its  eyes  loyally 
fixed  on  Paris.  It  had  just  the  same  harsh, 
austere  aspect  which  M.  Verhaeren's  poetry  has 


314  FRENCH    PROFILES 

preserved  ever  since.  It  was  utterly  unlike  what 
came  from  Paris  then,  dear  little  amber-scented 
books  of  polished  sonnets,  bound  in  vellum,  with 
Lemerre's  familiar  piocheur  on  the  cover.  It 
was  the  first  shoot  of  a  new  thing,  of  Franco- 
Flemish  imaginative  literature.  M.  Verhaeren 
cared  nothing  for  the  neglect  of  the  critics  ;  he 
went  on  putting  forth  successive  little  volumes, 
no  less  thorny,  no  less  smelling  of  the  dykes  and 
dunes — Les  Moines  in  1886,  Les  Soirs  in  1887, 
Les  Debacles  in  1888.  It  was  not  until  1889  that 
M.  Maeterlinck  came  to  his  support  with  a  first 
book,  the  Serres  Chaudes.  Meanwhile,  the  genius 
of  M.  Verhaeren,  the  product  of  an  individuality 
of  extraordinary  strength,  pressed  steadily  forward. 
He  has  gained  in  suppleness  and  skill  since  then, 
but  all  that  distinguishes  him  from  other  writers, 
all  that  is  himself,  is  to  be  found  in  these  earliest 
pamphlets  of  gaunt,  realistic  poetry. 

The  following  dismal  impression  of  London  is 
highly  characteristic  of  the  early  Verhaeren  of 
Les  Soirs : — 

"  Et  ce  Londres  de  fonte  et  de  bronze,  mon  4me, 
Oil  des  plaques  de  fer  claquent  sous  les  hangars, 

Ou  des  voiles  s'en  vont,  sans  Notre  Dame 
Pour  etoile,  s'en  vont,  Ik-bas,  vers  les  hasards. 

Gares  de  suies  et  de  fumee,  ou  du  gaz  pleure 

Ses  spleens  d'argent  lointain  vers  des  chemins  d'dclair, 

Oil  des  b^tes  d'ennui  baillent  k  I'heure, 
Dolente  immensdment,  qui  tinte  k  Westminster. 

Et  ces  quais  infinis  de  lanternes  fatales, 

Parques  dont  les  fuseaux  plongent  aux  profondeurs, 

Et  ces  marins  noyes,  sous  des  p^tales 
De  fleurs  de  boue  oil  la  flamme  met  des  lueurs. 


M.   EMILE   VERHAEREN     315 

Et  ces  chales  et  ces  gestes  de  femmes  soules, 
Et  ces  alcools  en  lettres  d'or  jusques  au  toit, 

Et  tout  k  coup  la  mort  parmi  ces  foules — 
O  men  ime  du  soir,  ce  Londres  noir  qui  trone  en  toi ! " 


A  hundred  years  ago  we  possessed  in  English 
literature  a  writer  very  curiously  parallel  to  M. 
Verhaeren,  who  probably  never  heard  of  him.  I 
do  not  know  whether  any  one  has  pointed  out  the 
similarity  between  Crabbe  and  the  Belgian  poet  of 
our  day.  It  is,  however,  very  striking  when  we 
once  come  to  think  of  it,  and  it  embraces  subject- 
matter,  attitude  to  life  and  art,  and  even  such 
closer  matters  as  diction  and  versification.  The 
situation  of  Crabbe,  in  relation  to  the  old  school 
of  the  eighteenth  century  on  the  one  hand  and  to 
the  romantic  school  on  the  other,^is  closely  repeated 
by  that  of  M.  Verhaeren  to  his  elders  and  his 
juniors.  If  Byron  were  now  alive,  he  might  call 
M.  Verhaeren  a  Victor  Hugo  in  worsted  stockings. 
There  is  the  same  sardonic  delineation  of  a  bleak 
and  sandy  sea-coast  country,  Suffolk  or  Zeeland 
as  the  case  may  be,  the  same  determination  to 
find  poetic  material  in  the  perfectly  truthful  study 
of  a  raw  peasantry,  of  narrow  provincial  towns,  of 
rough  and  cheerless  seafaring  existences.  In  each 
of  these  poets — and  scarcely  in  any  other  Euro- 
pean writers  of  verse — we  find  the  same  saline 
flavour,  the  same  odour  of  iodine,  the  same 
tenacious  attachment  to  the  strength  and  violence 
and  formidable  simplicity  of  nature. 

In  Les  Forces  Tumultueuses  we  discover  the  same 
qualities  which  we  have  found  before  in  M.  Ver- 


3i6  FRENCH    PROFILES 

haeren's  volumes.  He  employs  mainly  two  forms 
of  verse,  the  one  a  free  species  of  Alexandrines, 
the  other  a  wandering  measure,  loosely  rhymed, 
of  the  sort  which  used  among  ourselves  to  be 
called  "  Pindarique."  He  gives  us  studies  of  modern 
figures,  the  Captain,  the  Tribune,  the  Monk,  the 
Banker,  the  Tyrant.  He  gives  us  studies  of  towns, 
curiously  hard,  although  less  violent  than  those  in 
his  earlier,  and  perhaps  most  extraordinary,  book, 
LesVilles  Tentaculaires.  His  interest  in  towns  and 
hamlets  is  inexhaustible — and  did  not  Crabbe 
write  "The  Village"  and  "The  Borough"? 
Even  railway  junctions  do  not  dismay  the  muse 
of  M.  Verhaeren  : — 

"  Oh  !  ces  villes,  par  I'or  putride  envenimees  ! 
Clameurs  de  pierre  et  vols  et  gestes  de  fumees, 
Domes  et  tours  d'orgueil  et  colonnes  debout 
Dans  I'espace  qui  vibre  et  le  travail  qui  bout, 
En  aimas-tu  I'effroi  et  les  affres  profondes 
O  toi,  le  voyageur 
Qui  t'en  allais  triste  et  songeur, 
Par  les  gares  de  feu  qui  ceinturent  le  monde  ? 

Cahots  et  bonds  de  trains  par  au-dessus  des  monts  ! 

L'intime  et  sourd  tocsin  qui  enfi^vrait  ton  ame 

Battait  aussi  dans  ces  villes,  le  soir  ;  leur  flamme 

Rouge  et  myriadaire  illuminait  ton  front, 

Leur  aboi  noir,  le  cri,  le  ban  de  ton  coeur  meme  ; 

Ton  ^tre  entier  dtait  tordu  en  leur  blaspheme, 

Ta  volontd  jetee  en  proie  k  leur  torrent 

Et  vous  vous  maudissiez  tout  en  vous  adorant." 

The  superficially  prosaic  has  no  terrors  for  M. 
Verhaeren.     He  gives  us,  too,  of  course,  studies 


M.   EMILE   VERHAEREN     317 

of  the  sea-coast,  of  that  dreary  district  (it  can 
never  have  dreamed  that  it  would  nourish  a  poet) 
which  stretches  from  Antwerp  westward  along  the 
Scheldt  to  the  North  Sea,  that  infinite  roll  of 
dunes,  hung  between  the  convulsive  surf  and  the 
heavy  sky,  over  which  a  bitter  wind  goes  whistling 
through  the  wild  thin  grass  towards  a  vague  inland 
flatness,  vast,  monotonous  and  dull  beyond  all 
power  of  language  to  describe.  This  is  a  land 
which  arrives  at  relevancy  only  when  darkness 
falls  on  it,  and  its  great  revolving  lights  give 
relation  to  its  measureless  masses. 

The  habitual  gloom  and  mournfulness  of  M. 
Verhaeren's  pictures  are  only  relieved  once  in  this 
powerful  volume.  The  poem  called  Sur  la  Mer 
strikes  a  different  note,  and  resembles  one  of 
those  rare  sunshiny  days  when  the  creeks  of 
Northern  Flanders  are  in  gala.  We  watch  the 
brilliantly-coloured  ship  stirring  her  cordage  and 
fluttering  her  pennons,  like  some  gay  little  Dutch 
garden  putting  merrily  out  to  sea.  All  is  a  bustle 
of  scarlet  and  orange  and  blue  ;  but  it  would  not 
be  a  picture  of  M.  Verhaeren's  if  it  did  not  offer  a 
reverse  side  : — 

"  Le  vaisseau  clair  revint,  un  soir  de  bruit 
Et  de  f^te,  vers  le  rivage, 
D'ou  son  dlan  ^tait  parti  ; 
Certes,  les  mats  dardaient  toujours  leur  dme, 
Certes,  le  foe  portait  encore  des  oriflammes, 
Mais  les  marins  etaient  d^couronnds 
De  confiance,  et  les  haubans  et  les  cordages 
Ne  vibraient  plus  comme  des  lyres  sauvages. 


3i8  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Le  navire  rentra  comme  un  jardin  fand, 

Drapeaux  eteints,  espoirs  minds, 

Avec  I'efifroi  de  n'oser  dire  k  ceux  du  port 

Qu'il  avait  entendu,  Ik-bas,  de  plage  en  plage, 

Les  flots  crier  sur  les  rivages 

Que  Pan  et  que  Jesus,  tous  deux,  dtaient  des  morts." 

For  those  who  seek  from  poetry  its  superficial 
consolations,  the  canticles  of  M.  Verhaeren  offer 
little  attraction.  But  for  readers  who  can  endure 
a  sterner  music,  and  a  resolute  avoidance  of  the 
mere  affectations  of  the  intellect,  he  is  now  one 
of  the  most  interesting  figures  in  contemporary 
literature.  And  to  deny  that  he  is  a  poet  would 
be  like  denying  that  the  great  crimson  willow- 
herb  is  a  flower  because  it  grows  in  desolate 
places. 

1902. 


ALBERT  SAMAIN 

The  influence  of  Baudelaire,  which  so  gravely 
alarmed  the  critical  sanhedrim  of  forty  years  ago, 
has  proved  more  durable  than  was  expected,  but 
at  the  same  time  singularly  inoffensive.  There 
seemed  to  be  something  in  the  imagination  of 
Baudelaire  which  fermented  unpleasantly,  and  an 
outbreak  of  pestilence  in  his  neighbourhood  was 
seriously  apprehended.  He  was  treated  as  a  sort 
of  plague-centre.  It  would  be  difficult  to  make 
the  young  generation  in  London  realise  what 
palpitations,  what  tremors,  what  alarms  the  terrible 
Fleurs  du  Mai  caused  in  poetic  bosoms  about  i860. 


ALBERT    SAMAIN  319 

But  the  Satanic  dandyism,  as  it  was  called,  of  the 
poet's  most  daring  verses  was  not,  in  reality,  a 
very  perdurable  element.  Most  of  it  was  absurd, 
and  some  of  it  was  vulgar  ;  all  of  it,  with  the 
decease  of  poor  Maurice  Rollinat,  seems  now  to 
have  evaporated.  What  was  really  powerful  in 
Baudelaire,  and  what  his  horrors  at  first  con- 
cealed, was  the  extreme  intensity  of  his  sense  of 
beauty,  or,  to  be  more  precise,  his  noble  gift  of 
subduing  to  the  service  of  poetry  the  voluptuous 
visions  awakened  by  perfume  and  music  and  light. 

It  is  this  side  of  his  genius  which  has  attracted 
so  closely  the  leaders  of  the  poetic  revival  in 
France.  A  lofty,  if  somewhat  vaporous  dignity  ; 
a  rich,  if  somewhat  indefinable  severity  of  taste  ; 
these  are  among  the  prominent  qualities  of  the 
new  French  poetry,  which  is  as  far  removed  in 
spirit  from  the  detestable  "  mam'e  d' e'tonner "  of 
Les  Fleurs  du  Mai  as  it  is  possible  to  be.  Yet  in 
recounting  the  precursors  to  whom  the  homage 
of  the  new  school  is  due,  every  careful  critic  must 
enumerate,  not  only  Lamartine  and  Alfred  de 
Vigny,  but  unquestionably  Baudelaire. 

In  the  unfortunate  Albert  Samain,  for  instance, 
whose  death  has  deprived  France  prematurely  of 
a  nature  evidently  predestined,  as  few  can  be  said 
to  be,  to  the  splendours  of  poetic  fame,  this 
innocuous  and  wholesome  influence  of  Baudelaire 
may  be  very  clearly  traced.  It  does  not  interfere 
with  Samain's  claim  to  be  treated  as  an  original 
writer  of  high  gifts,  but  it  is  impossible  to  over- 
look its  significance.  The  crawling  corruption  of 
Baudelaire  has,  in  fact,  in  the  course  of  time,  not 


320  FRENCH    PROFILES 

merely  become  deodorised,  but  takes  its  place,  as 
a  pinch  of  "scentless  and  delicate  dust,"  in  the 
inevitable  composition  of  any  new  French  poet. 

In  the  course  of  the  winter  of  1893,  a  good 
many  persons,  of  whom  the  present  writer  was 
one,  received  a  small  quarto  volume,  bound  in 
deep  sage-green,  from  an  unknown  source  in 
Paris.  The  book,  which  was  privately  printed 
in  a  very  small  issue,  was  called  Au  Jardin  de 
r Infante,  and  it  transpired  that  this  was  the  first 
production  of  a  clerk  in  the  Prefecture  de  la 
Seine,  named  Albert  Samain.  Born  at  Lille  in 
1859,  Samain  was  no  longer  very  young,  but  he 
had  no  relations  with  the  world  of  letters,  and  a 
shy  dissatisfaction  with  what  he  had  written  gave 
him  a  dislike  to  publication.  The  sage-green 
volume,  already  so  rare,  was,  as  it  now  appears, 
printed  and  sent  out  by  a  friend,  in  spite  of  the 
poet's  deprecations.  A  copy  of  it  came  into  the 
hands  of  M.  Frangois  Copp6e,  who,  to  his  great 
honour,  instantly  perceived  its  merits,  and  in  the 
second  series  of  Mon  Franc-Parler  attracted  atten- 
tion to  it.  In  1897  an  edition  of  Au  Jardin  de 
Hnfante  placed  the  poems  of  Samain  within  the 
range  of  the  ordinary  reader,  and  in  1898  he 
published  another  volume,  Aux  Flancs  du  Vase. 
His  health,  however,  had  failed,  and  he  had  by 
this  time  retired  to  the  country  village  of  Magny- 
les-Hameaux,  where  he  died  on  the  1 8th  of  August, 
1900.  Since  his  death  there  have  appeared  a 
third  volume  of  poems,  Le  Chariot  d'Or  (1901), 
and  a  lyrical  drama,  Polypheme  (1902). 

The  existence  of  Albert  Samain  left  scarcely  a 


ALBERT    SAMAIN  321 

ripple  on  the  stream  of  French  literary  life.  He 
stood  apart  from  all  the  coteries,  and  his  shyness 
and  indigence  prevented  him  from  presenting  him- 
self where  he  might  readily  have  been  lionised. 
Of  the  very  few  persons  who  ever  saw  Samain 
I  have  interrogated  one  or  two  as  to  his  appear- 
ance and  manners.  They  tell  me  that  he  was 
pale  and  slight,  with  hollow  cheeks  and  pre- 
ponderating forehead,  and  of  a  great  economy 
of  speech.  Excessively  near-sighted,  he  seemed 
to  have  no  cognisance  of  the  world  about  him, 
and  the  regularity  of  his  life  as  a  clerk  emphasised 
his  dreamy  habits.  He  is  described  to  me  as 
grave,  and,  when  he  spoke,  somewhat  grandi- 
loquent ;  his  half-shut  eyes  gave  an  impression 
of  languor,  which  was  partly  physical  fatigue.  I 
think  it  possible  that  future  times  may  feel  a 
curiosity  about  the  person  of  Albert  Samain,  and 
that  there  will  be  practically  nothing  to  divulge, 
since  his  dreams  died  with  him.  This  small  city 
clerk,  with  his  poor  economies  and  stricken  health, 
habitually  escaped  from  the  oppression  of  a  life 
that  was  as  dull  and  void  as  it  could  be,  into 
the  buoyant  -liberty  of  gorgeous  and  persistent 
vision. 

He  expresses  this  himself  in  every  page  oi  Au 
Jardin  de  l* Infante.     He  says  : — 

"  Les  roses  du  couchant  s'effeuillent  sur  la  fleuve  ; 
Et  dans  I'^motion  pile  du  soir  tombant, 
S'evoque  un  pare  d'automne  ou  reve  sur  un  banc 
Ma  jeunesse  d^jk  grave  comme  une  veuve  ; " 

and  in  a  braver  tone  : — 


322  FRENCH    PROFILES 

"  Mon  ime  est  une  Infante  en  robe  de  parade, 
Dont  Texil  se  reflate,  dternel  et  royal, 
Aux  grands  miroirs  deserts  d'un  vieil  Escurial, 
Ainsi  qu'une  galore  oublide  en  la  rade." 

Everywhere  the  evidences  of  a  sumptuous  and 
enchanted  past,  everywhere  the  purity  of  silence 
and  the  radiance  of  royal  waters  at  sunset,  every- 
where the  incense  of  roses  that  were  planted  for 
the  pleasure  of  queens  long  dead  and  gone,  and 
Albert  Samain  pursuing  his  solitary  way  along 
those  deserted  paths  and  up  the  marble  of  those 
crumbling  staircases.  Such  is  the  illusion  which 
animates  the  Garden  of  the  Infanta.  Some- 
times the  poet  is  not  alone  there  ;  other  forms 
approach  him,  and  other  faces  smile ;  but  they 
are  the  faces  and  the  forms  of  phantoms : — 

"  L'ime  d'une  flfite  soupire 

Au  fond  du  pare  melodieux  ; 
Limpide  est  I'ombre  ou  Ton  respire 
Ton  po^me  silencieux, 

Nuit  de  langueur,  nuit  de  mensonge, 
Qui  poses  d'un  geste  ondoyant 

Dans  ta  chevelure  de  songe 
La  lune,  bijou  d'Orient. 

Sylva,  Sylvie  et  Sylvanire, 
Belles  au  regard  bleu  changeant, 

L'etoile  aux  fontaines  se  mire, 
AUez  par  les  sentiers  d'argent. 

Allez  vite — I'heure  est  si  br^ve  ! 

Cueillir  au  jardin  des  aveux 
Les  ccEurs  qui  se  meurent  du  reve 

De  mourir  parmi  vos  cheveux." 


ALBERT   SAMAIN  323 

His  aim  was  to  express  a  melancholy  and  chaste 
sensuousness  in  terms  of  the  most  tender  and  im- 
passioned symbolism.  No  one  has  succeeded  more 
frequently  than  Samain  in  giving  artistic  form  to 
those  vague  and  faint  emotions  which  pass  over 
the  soul  like  a  breeze.  He  desired  to  write  verses 
when,  as  he  said,  "  I'ame  sent,  exquise,  une  caresse 
a  peine,"  or  even — 

"  De  vers  silencieux,  et  sans  rythme  et  sans  trame, 
Ou  la  rime  sans  bruit  glisse  comme  une  rame, — 
De  vers  d'une  ancienne  6toffe  extenuee, 
Impalpable  comme  le  son  et  la  nuee." 

In  this  mood  his  poetry  occasionally  approaches 
that  of  Mr.  Robert  Bridges  on  the  one  side  and 
of  Mr.  Yeats  on  the  other.  It  has  at  other  times 
a  certain  marmoreal  severity  which  reminds  us  of 
neither.  I  desire  the  reader's  close  attention  to 
the  following  sonnet,  called  Cleopatre,  in  which  the 
genius  of  Albert  Samain  seems  to  be  all  revealed. 
Here,  it  may  at  first  be  thought,  he  comes  near  to 
the  old  Parnassians  ;  but  his  methods  will  be 
found  to  be  diametrically  opposed  to  theirs, 
although  not  even  M.  de  Heredia  would  have 
clothed  the  subject  with  a  nobler  beauty : — 

"  Accoud^e  en  silence  aux  crdneaux  de  la  tour, 

La  Reine  aux  cheveux  bleus,  serr^s  de  bandelettes, 
Sous  I'incantation  trouble  des  cassolettes, 
Sent  monter  dans  son  coeur  ta  mer,  immense  Amour. 

Immobile,  sous  ses  paupi^res  violettes, 
EUe  reve,  pamde  aux  fuites  des  coussins  ; 
Et  les  lourds  colliers  d'or  souleves  par  ses  seins 

Racontent  sa  langueur  et  ses  fi^vres  muettes. 


324  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Un  adieu  rose  flotte  au  front  des  monuments. 
Le  soir,  veloute  d'ombre,  est  plein  d'enchantements  ; 
Et  cependant  qu'  au  loin  pleurent  les  crocodiles, 

La  Reine  aux  doigts  crispes,  sanglotante  d'aveux, 
Frissonne  de  sentir,  lascives  et  subtiles, 
Des  mains  qui  dans  le  vent  epuisent  ses  cheveux." 

There  is  much  in  the  history  and  in  the  art  of 
Albert  Samain  which  reminds  me  of  an  English 
poet  whom  I  knew  well  when  we  both  were 
young,  and  who  still  awaits  the  fulness  of  re- 
cognition— Arthur  O'Shaughnessy.  Each  of  them 
was  fascinated  by  the  stronger  genius  of  two  poets 
of  an  older  generation — Baudelaire  and  Edgar 
Allan  Poe.  But  each  had  a  quality  that  was 
entirely  his  own,  a  quality  which  the  passage  of 
time  will  certainly  emphasise  and  isolate. 

1904. 

M.  PAUL    FORT 

The  instinct  which  impels  every  energetic  talent 
to  emancipate  itself  as  far  as  possible  from  the  bond- 
age of  tradition  is  a  natural  one,  and  it  is  even  not 
so  dangerous  as  we  suppose.  For,  if  there  is  a 
centrifugal  force  ever  driving  the  ambition  of  youth 
away  from  the  conventional  idea  of  beauty,  this  is 
easily  reversed  by  the  inherent  attraction  of  purity 
and  nobility  in  form.  The  artist  makes  a  bold 
flight  and  wheels  away  into  the  distance,  but  he 
returns ;  he  is  true,  like  Wordsworth's  skylark,  to 
the  kindred  points  of  heaven  and  home.  In  a 
writer,  therefore,  who  starts  in  open  rebellion  to 


M.  PAUL   FORT  325 

the  tradition  of  style,  we  have  but  to  wait  and  see 
whether  the  talent  itself  is  durable.  It  is  only 
presumptuous  Icarus,  whose  waxen  wings  melt  in 
the  sun,  and  who  topples  into  the  sea.  It  is  only 
the  writer  who  makes  eccentricity  the  mantle  to 
hide  his  poverty  of  imagination  and  absence  of 
thought  who  disappears.  To  the  young  man  of 
violent  idiosyncrasies  and  genuine  talent  two  things 
always  happen — he  impresses  his  charm  upon  our 
unwilling  senses,  and  he  is  himself  drawn  back, 
unconsciously  and  imperceptibly,  into  the  main 
current  of  the  stream  of  style. 

While  M.  Paul  Fort  was  merely  an  eccentric 
experimentalist,  it  did  not  seem  worth  while  to 
present  him  to  an  English  audience.  The  earliest 
of  his  published  volumes,  the  Ballades  Fran^aises  of 
1897,  "^^s  ^  pure  mystification  to  most  readers. 
It  was  printed,  and  apparently  written,  as  prose. 
It  asserted  the  superiority  of  rhythm  over  the  arti- 
fice of  prosody,  which  is  precisely  what  Walt  Whit- 
man did.  The  French  conceive  poetry,  however, 
very  rigidly  in  its  essential  distinction  from  prose. 
There  are  rules  for  writing  French  verse  which  are 
categorical,  and  these  must  be  taken  en  bloc.  It  is 
far  more  difficult  in  French  to  imagine  a  thing 
which  could  represent,  at  the  same  moment,  poetry 
and  prose,  than  it  would  be  in  English.  But  M. 
Paul  Fort  determined  to  create  this  entirely  new 
thing,  and  when  one  read  his  effusions  first  it  is 
only  fair  to  admit  that  one  was  bewildered.  Here, 
for  instance,  is,  in  its  entirety,  one  of  the  Ballades 
Frangaises : — 

"  Etre  n6  page  et  brave  vielleur  d'amour,  en  la 


326  FRENCH    PROFILES 

gentille  cour  d'un  prince  de  jadis,  chanter  une 
princesse  follement  aim^e,  au  nom  si  doux  que 
bruit  de  roses  essaim^es,  a  qui  offrir,  un  jour,  en 
lui  offrant  la  main  pour  la  marche  a  descendre 
avant  le  lac  d'hymen,  I'odorant  coffret  d'or  sous 
ses  chaines  de  lys,  plein  de  bleus  hyalins  es  anneaux 
de  soleil  et  d'oiselets  de  Chypre  ardents  pour  em- 
baumer,  a  qui  donner  aux  sons  des  fifres  et  des 
vielles,  pour  notre  travers^e  en  la  barque  d'hymen, 
le  frele  rosier  d'or  a  tenir  en  sa  main  ! " 

The  only  way  to  make  anything  of  this  is  to 
read  it  aloud,  and  it  may  be  said  in  parenthesis 
that  M.  Fort  is  a  writer  who  appeals  entirely  to 
the  ear,  not  to  the  eye.  Spoken,  or  murmured  in 
accordance  with  Mr.  Yeats's  new  method,  the  piece 
of  overladen  prose  disengages  itself,  floats  out  into 
filaments  of  silken  verse,  like  a  bunch  of  dry  sea- 
weed restored  to  its  element.  In  this  so-called 
ballad  the  alexandrine  dominates,  but  with  elisions, 
assonances,  irregularities  of  every  description.  It 
is  therefore  best  to  allow  the  author  himself  to 
define  his  method.  He  says  in  the  preface  to  a 
later  poem,  Le  Roman  de  Louis  XI. : — 

"  J'ai  cherch6  un  style  pouvant  passer,  au  gr6  de 
r^motion,  de  la  prose  au  vers  et  du  vers  a  la  prose: 
la  prose  rythmic  fournit  la  transition.  Le  vers 
suit  les  Elisions  naturelles  du  langage.  II  se  pr6- 
sente  comme  prose,  toute  gene  d'61ision  disparais- 
sant  sous  cette  forme." 

In  short,  we  have  heard  much  about  "  free 
verse "  in  France,  but  here  at  last  we  have  an 
author  who  has  had  the  daring  to  consider  prose 
and  verse  as  parts  of  one  graduated  instrument; 


M.   PAUL   FORT  327 

and  to  take  the  current  pronunciation  of  the 
French  language  as  the  only  law  of  a  general  and 
normal  rhythm.  It  is  a  curious  experiment,  and 
we  shall  have  to  see  what  he  will  ultimately  make 
of  it. 

But  one  is  bound  to  admit  that  he  has  made  a 
good  deal  of  it  already.  He  has  become  an  author 
whom  we  cannot  affect  or  afford  to  ignore.  Born 
so  lately  as  1872,  M.  Paul  Fort  is  in  some  respects 
the  most  notable,  as  he  is  certainly  the  most  abun- 
dant, imaginative  author  of  his  age  in  France. 
The  book  which  lies  before  us,  a  romance  of 
Parisian  life  of  to-day  in  verse,  is  the  sixth  of  the 
volumes  which  M.  Fort  has  brought  out  in  less 
than  six  years,  all  curiously  consistent  in  manner, 
all  independent  of  external  literary  influences,  and 
all  full  of  exuberant,  fresh  and  vivid  impressions 
of  nature.  The  eccentricities  of  his  form  lay  him 
open,  of  course,  to  theoretical  objections  which 
I  should  never  think  unreasonable,  and  which  I 
am  conservative  enough  to  share.  But  these  do 
not  affect  his  ardour  in  the  contemplation  of  nature, 
his  high  gust  of  being.  I  scarcely  know  where  to 
point  in  any  recent  literature  to  an  author  so  full 
of  the  joy  of  life.  He  does  not  philosophise  or 
analyse,  he  affects  no  airs  of  priest  or  prophet  ;  his 
attitude  is  extraordinarily  simple,  but  is  charged 
with  the  ecstasy  of  appreciation.  In  two  of  his 
collections  of  lyrics  in  rhythm,  in  particular,  we 
find  this  ardour,  this  enchantment,  predominating  ; 
these  2ire  Moniagne,  1898,  a.nd  L' Amour  Marin,  1900, 
in  which  he  sings,  or  chants,  the  forest  and  the  sea. 

In  Paris  Sentimental  M.  Paul  Fort  has  written  a 


328  FRENCH    PROFILES 

novel  in  his  peculiar  and  favourite  form.  We 
have  had  many  examples  of  the  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties which  attend  the  specious  adventure  of 
writing  modern  fiction  in  metrical  shape.  Neither 
Aurora  Leigh  nor  Lucile  nor  The  Inn  Album 
is  entirely  encouraging  as  more  than  the  ex- 
periment of  a  capricious  though  splendidly  ac- 
complished artist.  Yet  Paris  Sentimental  is  more 
nearly  related  to  these  than  to  any  French  poem 
that  I  happen  to  recollect.  There  is,  indeed,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  something  English  in  M.  Fort's  habit 
of  mind.  His  novel,  however,  is  much  less  elaborate 
than  either  of  the  English  poems  I  have  mentioned, 
and  certainly  much  less  strenuous  than  the  first 
and  third.  It  is  a  chain  of  lyrical  rhapsodies  in 
which  a  very  plain  tale  of  love  and  disappointment 
in  the  Paris  of  to-day  is  made  the  excuse  for  a 
poetical  assimilation  of  all  the  charming  things 
which  Paris  contains,  and  which  have  hitherto 
evaded  the  skill  of  the  poets,  such  as  the  turf  in 
the  Square  Monge,  and  the  colour  of  an  autumn 
shower  on  the  Boulevard  S^bastopol,  and  the 
Tziganes  singing  by  moonlight  at  the  Exposition. 
Here  is  an  example  of  how  it  is  done  : — 

"  Le  couchant  violet  tremble  au  fond  du  jour 
rouge.  Le  Luxembourg  exhale  une  odeur  d'oranger, 
et  Manon  s'arrete  a  mon  bras  ;  plus  rien  ne  bouge, 
les  arbres,  les  passants,  ce  nuage  61oign6.  .  .   . 

"  Et  le  jet  d'eau  s'est  tu :  c'est  la  ros6e  qui 
chante,  la-bas,  dans  les  gazons,  oii  r^vent  les 
statues,  et  pour  rendre,  6  sens-tu  ?  la  nuit  plus 
d^faillante,  les  Grangers  en  fleurs  ont  enivr6  la 
nue." 


M.   PAUL   FORT  329 

It  would  be  an  easy  exercise  to  search  for  the 
metre  here,  as  we  used  to  hunt  for  blank  verse  in 
the  Leaves  of  Grass.  But  M.  Paul  Fort  is  less  re- 
volutionary than  Whitman,  and  more  of  an  artist. 
Although  he  clings  to  his  theories,  in  each  of  his 
volumes  he  seems  to  be  less  negligent  of  form,  less 
provocative,  than  he  was  in  the  last.  The  force 
of  his  talent  is  wheeling  him  back  into  the  inevit- 
able tradition  ;  he  is  being  forced  by  the  music  in 
his  veins  to  content  himself  with  cadences  that 
were  good  enough  for  Racine  and  Hugo  and 
Baudelaire.  And,  therefore,  in  the  last  quotation 
which  I  offer  from  Paris  Sentimental,  I  take  the 
liberty  of  disregarding  the  typographical  whims  of 
the  author,  and  print  his  lines  as  verse : — 

"  Par  les  nuits  d'ete  bleues  oii  chantent  les  cigales, 
Dieu  verse  sur  la  France  une  coupe  d'etoiles. 
Le  vent  porte  k  ma  16vre  un  gout  du  ciel  6!6x6  ! 
Je  veux  boire  k  I'espace  fraichement  argentd 

L'air  du  soir  est  pour  moi  le  bord  de  la  coupe  froide 
Oii,  les  yeux  mi-fermds  et  la  bouche  goulue, 

Je  bois,  comme  le  jus  presse  d'une  grenade, 
La  firaicheur  etoil^e  qui  se  rdpand  des  nues. 

Couch^  sur  un  gazon  dont  I'herbe  est  encore  chaude 
De  s'etre  prelassde  sous  I'haleine  du  jour, 
Oh  !  que  je  viderais,  ce  soir,  avec  amour. 

La  coupe  immense  bleue  ou  le  firmament  rode  1 " 

1902. 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF   FRANCE    UPON 
ENGLISH   POETRY 

Address  delivered,  February  9,  1904,  before  the  Sociiid  des 
Conferences,  in  Paris. 

Before  I  begin  to  discuss  with  you  the  particular 
subject  of  my  discourse  this  afternoon,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  expressing  my  emotion  at  finding 
myself,  in  consequence  of  your  gracious  invitation, 
occupying  this  platform.  It  has  been  said  that, 
for  a  man  of  letters,  consideration  in  a  country 
not  his  own  is  a  foretaste  of  the  verdict  of  pos- 
terity. If  there  be  any  truth  in  this,  then  surely,  in 
the  particular  case  where  that  country  happens  to 
be  France,  it  should  be  more — it  should  be  some- 
thing very  like  a  dangerous  mirage  of  immortality. 
When  the  invitation  of  your  committee  first  reached 
me,  it  seemed  for  a  moment  impossible  that  I 
could  accept  it.  In  no  perfunctory  or  compli- 
mentary sense,  I  shrank,  with  an  apprehension  of 
my  own  twilight,  from  presenting  myself  in  the 
midst  of  your  blaze  of  intelligence.  How  could  I 
be  sure  that  any  of  my  reflections,  of  my  observa- 
tions, could  prove  worthy  of  acceptance  by  an 
audience  accustomed  to  the  teachings  of  the  most 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       331 

brilliant  and  the  most  learned  critics  of  the  world  ? 
If  there  be  an  obvious  lack  of  sufficiency  in  my 
words  this  afternoon,  then,  on  yourselves  must  be 
the  blame,  and  on  your  own  generosity,  since  in 
venturing  to  stand  before  you,  it  is  your  com- 
mands which  I  obey  in  all  simplicity.  I  obey 
them  as  some  barbarous  Northern  minstrel  might, 
who,  finding  himself  at  the  court  of  Philippe  de 
Valois,  should  be  desired,  in  the  presence  of  the 
prince  and  of  his  ladies,  to  exhibit  a  specimen  of 
his  rough  native  art. 

The  subject  of  our  inquiry  to-day  is  not  the 
nature  of  the  change  which  occurs  when  a  new 
literature  rises  out  of  the  imitation  of  an  older 
one,  as  occurred  with  such  splendid  results  when 
Latin  poetry  was  deliberately  based  on  Greek 
poetry,  in  the  second  century  before  Christ,  or 
when,  in  the  early  Middle  Ages,  the  vernacular 
literatures  of  modern  Europe  sprang  out  of  the 
decay  of  Latin.  In  such  cases  as  these  the  matter  is 
simple  ;  out  of  the  old  stock  there  springs  a  new 
bud,  affiliated  to  it,  imitative  and  only  gradually 
independent.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  Ennius, 
in  the  dawn  of  Rome,  sitting  with  the  Greek  hexa- 
meter before  him,  and  deliberately  fashioning  a 
similar  thing  out  of  the  stubbornness  of  his  own 
rough  tongue.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  some 
student-minstrel  of  the  eleventh  century  debating 
within  himself  whether  he  shall  put  down  his 
thoughts  in  faded  Latin  or  in  the  delicate  lingua 
Tusca,  communis  et  intelligibilis.  Influences  of  this 
kind  are  a  part  of  the  direct  and  natural  evolution 
of  literature,  and  their  phenomena  are  almost  of  a 


332  FRENCH    PROFILES 

physical  kind.  Wiien  a  new  language  breaks 
away  from  an  old  language  into  the  forms  of  a 
creative  literature,  its  earliest  manifestations  must 
be  imitative.  It  is  original  in  the  very  fact  that  it 
copies  into  a  new  medium  instead  of  continuing 
in  an  old  one. 

But  the  problem  is  much  more  subtle  and  the 
phenomena  more  delicate  and  elusive  when  we 
have  to  deal  with  the  influences  mutually  exercised 
on  one  another  by  contemporary  literatures  of 
independent  character  and  long-settled  traditions. 
In  the  case  before  us,  we  have  one  great  people 
building  up  for  the  expression  of  their  joys  and 
passions  a  language  out  of  Anglo-Saxon  materials, 
and  another  great  people  forging  out  of  low  Latin 
a  vehicle  for  their  complicated  thoughts.  The 
literatures  so  created  have  enjoyed  a  vivid  and 
variegated  vitality  for  century  after  century,  never 
tending  the  one  towards  the  other,  neither  at  any 
time  seriously  taking  a  place  subordinate  to  the 
other,  nor  even  closely  related.  The  image  that 
may  help  to  suggest  to  us  what  it  is  that  we 
must  look  for  in  observing  the  mutual  influences 
of  French  and  English  literature  upon  one  another 
is  that  of  two  metallic  objects,  of  different  colour, 
pursuing  a  long  parallel  flight  through  space.  We 
are  not  to  count  upon  their  touching  one  another, 
or  their  affecting  the  direction  or  speed  of  either, 
but  we  may  expect,  on  occasion,  to  observe  along 
the  burnished  side  of  the  one  a  dash  of  colour 
reflected  from  the  illuminated  surface  of  the  other. 

It  would  take  us  too  far  from  our  proper  theme 
this  afternoon — a  theme  which  at  best  we  can  but 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       333 

very  hurriedly  investigate — were  I  to  dwell  on  the 
essential  differences  which  distinguish  the  poetry 
of  England  from  that  of  France.  But  it  may  be 
pointed  out  that  these  differences  make  them- 
selves most  clearly  felt  exactly  wherever  the 
national  idiosyncrasy  is  most  searchingly  defined. 
The  extraordinary  perfection  of  the  verse  of 
Coleridge  in  its  concentrated  sweetness  and  har- 
mony of  vision,  has  never  appealed  to  any  French 
student  of  our  literature.  Perhaps  no  French  ear 
could  be  trained  to  understand  what  the  sover- 
eign music  of  Coleridge  means  to  us.  In  like 
manner  it  is  probable  that,  with  all  our  efforts, 
English  criticism  has  never  understood,  and  never 
will  understand,  what  the  effect  of  the  astonishing 
genius  of  Racine  is  upon  the  nerves  and  intelligence 
of  a  Frenchman.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  Mr.  Swinburne  approaches  thought  and 
style  from  a  point  of  view  eminently,  appreciable 
by  the  French,  while  France  contains  one  great 
poet,  Charles  Baudelaire,  whose  oddity  of  mental 
attitude  and  whose  peculiar  treatment  of  verse- 
music  and  of  imagery  are  perhaps  more  easily 
comprehended  by  an  English  reader  than  by  an 
academic  Frenchman. 

A  matter  which  might  be  pursued,  in  connec- 
tion with  this,  but  which  time  forbids  me  to  do 
more  than  indicate,  is  that,  while  in  France  poetry 
has  been  accustomed  to  reflect  the  general  tongue 
of  the  people,  the  great  poets  of  England  have 
almost  always  had  to  struggle  against  a  complete 
dissonance  between  their  own  aims  and  interests 
and  those  of  the  nation.     The  result  has  been  that 


334  FRENCH    PROFILES 

England,  the  most  inartistic  of  modern  races,  has 
produced  the  largest  number  of  exquisite  literary 
artists. 

The  expression  of  personal  sensation  has  always 
been  dear  to  the  English  poets,  and  we  meet  with  it 
in  some  of  the  earliest  babblings  of  our  tongue. 
From  Anglo-Saxon  times  onward,  the  British  bard 
never  felt  called  upon  to  express  the  aesthetic 
emotions  of  a  society  around  him,  as  the  Provencal 
troubadour  or  Carlovingian  jongleur  did.  He  was 
driven  to  find  inspiration  in  nature  and  in  himself. 
The  mediaeval  conquest  of  England  by  the  French 
language  did  not  modify  this  state  of  things  in  any 
degree.  When  the  French  wave  ebbed  away  from 
us  in  the  fourteenth  century,  it  left  our  poets  of  pure 
English  as  individual,  as  salient,  as  unrepresentative 
as  ever.  What  every  poet  of  delicate  genius, 
whether  he  be  Chaucer  or  Milton,  Gray  or  Keats, 
has  felt  in  the  existing  world  of  England,  has  been 
the  pressure  of  a  lack  of  the  aesthetic  sense.  Our 
people  are  not  naturally  sensitive  to  harmony,  to 
proportion,  to  the  due  relation  of  parts  in  a  work 
of  imaginative  artifice.  But  what  is  very  curious 
is  that  our  poets  have  been  peculiarly  sensitive  to 
these  very  qualities,  and  that  no  finer  or  subtler 
artists  in  language  have  risen  in  any  country  than 
precisely  the  poetic  representatives  of  the  densely 
unpoetic  England. 

The  result  of  this  fantastic  and  almost  incessant 
discord  between  our  poets  and  our  people — a 
discord  dissolved  into  harmony  only  at  one 
moment  around  the  genius  of  Shakespeare — the 
result    of   this  has  been   to   make    our    poets,  at 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       335 

critical  epochs,  sensitive  to  catch  the  colour  of 
literatures  alien  from  their  own.  In  the  healthier 
moments  of  our  poetry  we  have  gained  brightness 
by  reflections  from  other  literatures,  from  those  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  from  those  of  Italy  and  Spain 
and  France.  In  moments  when  our  poetry  was 
unhealthy  it  has  borrowed  to  its  immediate  and 
certain  disadvantage  from  these  neighbours.  But 
it  will,  I  think,  be  found  that  in  the  latter  case  the 
borrowing  has  invariably  been  of  a  coarser  and 
more  material  kind,  and  has  consisted  in  a  more  or 
less  vulgar  imitation.  The  evil  effect  of  this  will, 
I  believe,  be  found  to  be  as  definite  as  the  effect  of 
the  higher  and  more  illusive  borrowing  is  bene- 
ficial. For  purposes  of  convenience  I  propose  in 
the  following  remarks  to  distinguish  these  forms 
of  influence  as  consisting  in  colour  and  in  sub- 
stance. 

A  few  words  may  serve  to  define  what  I  under- 
stand here  by  "  substance "  and  by  "  colour." 
By  the  first  of  these  I  wish  to  indicate  those  cases 
in  which  influence  has  taken  a  gross  and  slavish 
form,  in  which  there  has  been  a  more  or  less  com- 
plete resignation  of  the  individuality  of  the  literature 
influenced.  An  instance  of  this  is  the  absolute 
bondage  of  Spanish  drama  to  French  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  a  play  had  no  chance 
on  the  stage  of  Madrid  unless  it  were  directly 
modelled  on  Racine  or  Voltaire.  We  shall  pre- 
sently have  to  point  to  something  similar  in  the 
drama  of  our  own  Restoration.  These  are  cases 
where  an  exhausted  literature,  in  extreme  decay, 
is  kept  alive  by  borrowing  its  very  body  and  essence 


23^  FRENCH    PROFILES 

from  a  foreign  source,  the  result  being  that  such 
Hfe  as  it  presents  is  not  really  its  own,  but  provided 
for  it,  ready-made,  by  the  genius  of  another 
country.  This  species  of  influence  I  hold  to  be 
invariably  the  sign  of  a  diseased  and  weakly  con- 
dition. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  precisely  when  the 
poets  of  a  country  desire  to  clothe  in  new  forms 
the  personal  sensations  which  are  driving  them  to 
creative  expression,  that  they  are  very  likely  to 
turn  to  a  neighbouring  literature,  which  happens 
to  be  at  a  stage  of  aesthetic  development  different 
from  their  own,  for  superficial  suggestions.  The 
ornaments  of  form  which  they  bring  back  with 
them,  when  they  are  in  this  healthy  and  lively 
condition,  are  what  I  describe  as  "  colour."  In 
the  early  history  of  European  poetry,  none  of  the 
great  poetic  powers  disdained  to  import  from 
Italy  the  radiance  and  tincture  of  her  executive 
skill.  The  introduction  of  the  sonnet  to  England 
and  to  France,  that  of  blank  verse  to  England, 
that  of  prose  comedy  to  France,  these  were  in- 
stances of  the  absorption  by  living  and  vigoi-ous 
literatures  of  elements  in  the  literary  art  of  Italy 
which  were  instinctively  felt  by  them  to  be 
strengthening  and  refining,  but  not  subjugating. 
In  these  cases  influence  does  nothing  to  lessen  the 
importance  of  that  delicate  distinction  of  individual 
style  which  is  the  very  charm  of  poetry,  but 
rather  gives  that  distinction  a  more  powerful 
apparatus  for  making  its  presence  felt. 

We  have  a  very  instructive  example  of  this 
wholesome  reflex  action  of  one  literature  upon 
another,  in  the  history  of  the  fourteenth  century. 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       337 

No  one  will  pretend  that  France  possessed  at  that 
epoch,  or  indeed  had  ever  yet  possessed,  a  poet  of 
very  high  rank,  with  the  exception  of  the  anony- 
mous artist  who  bequeathed  to  us  the  Chanson 
de  Roland.  But,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  she  had 
produced  that  amazing  work,  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose, 
half  of  it  amatory,  the  other  half  of  it  satirical, 
and  the  whole  of  it  extraordinarily  vivid  and 
civilising.  It  would  be  too  much  to  call  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose  a  great  poem,  or  even  two  great 
poems  fused  into  one.  But  it  certainly  was  one 
of  the  most  influential  works  which  ever  proceeded 
from  the  pen  of  man.  Its  influence,  if  we  look  at 
it  broadly,  was  in  the  direction  of  warmth  and 
colour.  It  glowed  like  a  fire,  it  flashed  like  a 
sunrise.  Guillaume  de  Lorris  deserves  our  eternal 
thanks  for  being  the  first  in  modern  Europe  to 
write  "  pour  esgaier  les  cceurs."  He  introduced 
into  poetry  amenity,  the  pulse  of  life,  the  power  of 
Earthly  Love. 

It  is  useful  for  us  to  compare  the  Roman  de  la 
Rose  with  what  the  best  English  poets  were 
writing  at  the  same  time.  What  do  we  find  ? 
We  find  a  few  dismal  fragments  of  Scriptural 
morality  and  one  or  two  sermons  in  verse.  We 
may  speculate  in  what  a  spirit  a  dulled  English 
minstrel  of  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  would 
read  the  bold  and  brilliant  couplets  of  Jean  de 
Meung.  He  would  certainly  be  dazzled,  and 
perhaps  be  scandalised.  He  would  creep  back  to 
his  own  clammy  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt  and  his  stony 
Cursor  Mundi  to  escape  from  so  much  dangerous 
warmth    and    colour.       It    seems    as    though    for 

Y 


338  FRENCH    PROFILES 

nearly  a  hundred  years  England  steadily  refused 
to  enter  that  fair  orchard  where  Beauty  and  Love 
were  dancing  hand  in  hand  around  the  thorny  hedge 
that  guarded  the  Rosebud  of  the  World.  But  the 
revelation  came  at  last,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  English  poetry,  as  it  has  since  become, 
in  the  hands  of  Shakespeare  and  Keats  and  Tenny- 
son, sprang  into  life  when  the  English  poets  first 
became  acquainted  with  the  gallant,  courteous, 
and  amatory  allegory  of  the  Worship  of  the  Rose. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  see  that,  apparently,  it 
was  no  less  a  person  than  Chaucer  who  led 
English  readers  first  to  the  grassy  edge  of  the 
fountain  of  love.  The  evidence  is  curiously 
obscure,  and  has  greatly  exercised  Chaucerian 
scholars.  But  the  truth  seems  to  be  that  Chaucer 
translated  Le  Roman  de  la  Rose,  as  he  tells  us 
himself  in  the  The  Legend  of  Good  IVomen,  but 
that  of  this  translation  only  a  fragment  now 
survives.  The  other  two  fragments,  always 
printed  together  with  Chaucer's,  are  now  con- 
sidered to  be  not  his,  and  indeed  to  come  from 
two  different  hands.  Into  this  vexed  question  we 
must  not  go,  but  it  is  worth  noticing  that  although 
the  three  fragments  which  make  up  the  fourteenth- 
century  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  only  cover,  together, 
one-third  of  the  French  text,  Chaucer  constantly 
quotes  from  and  refers  to  passages  from  other 
parts  of  the  poem,  showing  that  he  was  familiar 
with  it  all. 

English  poetry,  we  may  observe,  had  more  to 
learn  from  Guillaume  de  Lorris  than  from  Jean  de 
Meung,   great   and   more   vigorous  writer  though 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE      339 

the  latter  might  be.  What  modern  EngHsh 
poetry,  in  fact,  in  its  restless  adolescence,  was 
leaning  to  France  for  was  not  so  much  vigour  as 
grace.  It  had  satiric  vigour  of  its  own  in  its 
apocalyptical  Langland.  But  what  beamed  and 
glowed  upon  Chaucer  from  the  Roman  de  la  Rose 
was  its  human  sweetness,  its  perfume  as  of  a  bush 
of  eglantine  in  April  sunshine.  It  was  the  first 
delicate  and  civilised  poem  of  modern  Europe, 
and  its  refinement  and  elegance,  its  decorated 
beauty  and  its  close  observation  of  the  human 
heart  were  the  qualities  which  attracted  to  it 
Chaucer,  as  he  came  starved  from  the  chill 
allegories  and  moralities  of  his  formless  native 
literature. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1359  that  Chaucer,  as 
a  page  in  the  retinue  of  Prince  Lionel,  paid  what 
is  supposed  to  have  been  his  earliest  visit  to 
France.  He  took  his  part  in  the  luckless  in- 
vasion of  Champagne,  and  he  was  captured  by 
the  French,  perhaps  at  R^thel.  Until  March  1360, 
when  King  Edward  III.  ransomed  him  for  the 
sum  of  £i(i,  he  was  a  prisoner  in  France.  During 
these  five  or  six  months  we  have  to  think  of 
Chaucer  as  a  joyous  youth  of  nineteen,  little  cast 
down  by  the  fortunes  of  war,  but  full  of  sentiment, 
poetry,  and  passion.  Up  to  that  time,  doubtless, 
he  had  read  few  or  none  but  French  books.  We 
cannot  question  that  he  was  familiar  with  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  and  it  is  just  possible  that  it 
was  at  this  time  that  he  came  in  contact  with 
the  lyrical  writers  whose  personal  poetry  affected 
him  so  much  later  on.     I  am  inclined,  however, 


340  FRENCH    PROFILES 

to  think  this  unlikely,  because  Eustache  Deschamps 
was  a  youth  of  about  Chaucer's  own  age,  and 
although  Guillaume  de  Machault  was  consider- 
ably older,  there  had  been  little  public  distribution 
of  his  verses  so  early  as  1360. 

We  must  put  the  date  of  Chaucer's  coming 
under  the  influence  of  the  French  writers  of  chants 
royaux  and  lais  and  ballades  a  httle  later.  In  the 
summer  of  1369  he  was  once  more  in  France, 
and  this  time,  it  would  appear,  on  some  pacific 
embassage.  Perhaps  he  escaped  from  the  plague 
which  decimated  England  in  that  year,  and  carried 
off  even  Queen  Philippa  herself.  Perhaps  he  was 
engaged  on  a  diplomatic  mission.  We  have  to 
walk  carefully  in  the  darkness  of  these  mediaeval 
dates,  which  offer  difficulties  even  to  the  erudition 
of  M.  Marcel  Schwob.  At  all  events,  Chaucer  was 
certainly  then  "  in  partibus  Franciae,"  and  it  can 
hardly  but  have  been  now  that  he  fell  under  the 
influence  of  Machault,  whom  he  admired  so  much, 
and  of  Eustache  Deschamps,  in  whom  he  awakened 
so  enthusiastic  a  friendship.^  There  was  an  entente 
cordiale  indeed  when  Deschamps  and  Froissart  com- 
plimented Chaucer,  and  Chaucer  imitated  Machault 
and  Oton  de  Granson.  We  find  the  English  poet 
passing  through  France  again  in  1373,  and  again 
in  1377.  We  have  vague  and  accidental  record 
of  at  least  seven  of  these  diplomatic  journeys, 
although    after    1378   the   French  interest  seems 

^  Mr.  Fitzmaurice-Kelly  reminds  me  that,  in  his  celebrated  letter  to 
the  Constable  of  Portugal,  the  Spanish  poet  Santillana  goes  into 
raptures  about  four  of  the  writers  whom  Chaucer  admired — Guillaume 
de  Lorris,  Jean  de  Meung,  Machault,  and  Granson. 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       341 

entirely  swallowed  up  in  the  far  more  vivid  fasci- 
nation which  Italy  exercised  over  him. 

To  a  poet  who  was  privileged  to  come  beneath 
the  intellectual  sway  of  Petrarch  and  Boccaccio  at 
the  glorious  close  of  their  careers,  it  might  well  be 
that  such  suns  would  seem  entirely  to  eclipse  the 
tapers  of  those  who  composed  ballades  and  virelais 
in  the  rich  provinces  north  of  the  Loire.  Himself 
a  man  of  far  greater  genius  than  any  French 
writer  of  the  fourteenth  century,  we  might  be 
prepared  to  find  Chaucer  disdaining  the  gentle 
balladists  of  France.  He  had,  to  a  far  greater 
degree  than  any  of  them,  vigour,  originality,  fulness 
of  invention.  Eustache  Deschamps  is  sometimes 
a  very  forcible  poet,  but  he  sinks  into  insignifi- 
cance when  we  set  him  side  by  side  with  the  giant 
who  wrote  the  Canterbury  Tales.  Yet  if  Chaucer 
brought  vigour  to  English  poetry,  he  found  in 
France,  and  among  these  rhetorical  lyrists,  pre- 
cisely the  qualities  which  were  lacking  at  home. 
What  it  was  essential  for  England  to  receive  at 
that  most  critical  moment  of  her  intellectual 
history  was  an  external,  almost  a  superficial, 
matter.  She  did  not  require  the  body  and  bones 
of  genius,  but  the  garments  with  which  talent 
covers  them.  These  robes  are  what  we  name 
grace,  elegance,  melody  and  workmanship,  and 
these  delicate  textiles  were  issuing  in  profusion 
from  the  looms  of  France. 

This  is  the  secret  of  the  strong  influence  exer- 
cised on  a  very  great  poet  like  Chaucer,  and 
through  him  upon  the  poetry  of  England,  by  a 
writer  so  essentially   mediocre   as  Guiliaume    de 


342  FRENCH    PROFILES 

Machault.  It  was  the  accomplished  tradition,  the 
picturesque  and  artistic  skill  of  the  lesser  poet, 
which  so  strongly  attracted  the  greater.  From 
Machault  English  poetry  took  that  heroic  couplet 
which  had  hitherto  been  unknown  to  it,  and 
which  was  to  become  one  of  its  most  abundant 
and  characteristic  forms.  In  a  variety  of  ways 
the  prosody  of  Great  Britain  was  affected  by  that 
of  France  between  1350  and  1370.  The  loose 
and  languid  forms  in  which  British  poets  had 
hitherto  composed  were  abandoned  in  delight  at 
the  close  metre  of  the  French,  and  about  1350 
John  Gower  produced  his  Cinquante  Balades  not 
merely  in  the  form  but  in  the  very  language  of 
Eustache  Deschamps.  His  Mirour  de  I'Omme,  a 
long  and  important  poem  first  printed  by  Mr. 
Macaulay  in  1899,  is  an  instance  of  pure  Gallicisa- 
tion.  Chaucer  did  not  imitate  the  French  thus 
grossly.  Indeed,  he  went  to  France  for  nothing 
interior  or  essential,  but,  sensitively  conscious  that 
his  own  country  lacked  most  of  all  the  aesthetic 
graces,  he  borrowed  from  writers  like  Machault 
and  Granson  the  external  colour  and  the  technical 
forms.  But  the  substantial  forces  which  awakened 
the  splendid  bourgeois  genius  of  Chaucer  were  the 
aristocratic  influences  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and 
Boccaccio. 

Two  hundred  years  later,  at  the  next  great  crisis 
of  English  literature,  a  very  similar  condition  is 
apparent,  though  exposed  with  less  intensity. 
The  mediccval  forms  of  poetry,  allegorical,  didactic, 
diffuse,  had  now  worn  themselves  out.  There 
was  a  total  abandonment  of  "  gardens "  of  rhe- 
toric, of  plaisances  of   morality.     These  efforts   of 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       343 

exhausted  fancy  continued  to  please  English 
readers  longer  than  they  did  French  ones,  and  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  their  decay  was  sudden  with  us, 
not  gradual  as  with  you.  Not  only,  for  instance, 
did  the  transitional  rhetoricians  of  the  beginning 
of  the  sixteenth  century  exercise  no  influence  on 
English  thought,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that  a 
single  person  in  England  read  a  line  of  Jean 
Le  Maire  des  Beiges.  But  a  little  later  all  is 
different,  A  recent  critic  has  said  that  the 
writings  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  though  not  epoch- 
making,  were  "  epoch  -  marking."  They  were 
not  men  of  genius,  but  they  were  of  eminently 
modern  taste.  They  perceived  that  everybody 
was  tired  of  long-winded  allegory  and  rhetoric, 
and  they  set  themselves  to  write  verse  "  in  short 
parcels,"  that  is  to  say,  in  brief  lyrics.  So  they 
looked  to  France,  where  Wyatt  passed,  probably, 
in  1532.  What  did  he  find?  Doubtless  he 
found  Clement  Marot  in  the  act  of  putting  forth 
L Adolescence  Clementine.  It  is  probable  that  Marot, 
with  his  "  elegant  badinage,"  was  too  gay  for  these 
stiff  English  nobles,  so  solemn  and  rigid.  His 
want  of  intellectual  ambition  would  strike  them, 
and  they  passed  on  to  Italy.  But  something  of 
the  perfume  of  France  was  left  upon  their  fingers, 
and  they  seem  to  have  borrowed,  perhaps  from 
Melin  de  Saint-Gelais,  but  more  probably  from 
Marot,  the  sonnet  -  form,  hitherto  unknown  in 
England.  It  cannot  be  pretended  that  in  the  great 
awakening  of  English  lyrical  poetry  in  the  middle 
of  the  sixteenth  century  France  had  any  great  share, 
but  what  there  was  tended  in  the  aesthetic  direc- 


344  FRENCH    PROFILES 

tion.  The  ugly  hardness  of  the  last  mediaeval  poets 
was  exchanged  for  a  daintiness  of  expression,  a 
graceful  lucidity,  in  the  merit  of  which  Clement 
Marot's  rondeaux  and  epigrams  had  a  distinct 
share. 

We  have  now  considered  two  instances — the 
one  important,  the  other  slight — in  which  English 
poetry  received,  at  critical  moments,  a  distinct 
colour  from  the  neighbouring  art  of  France.  In 
each  case  the  influence  was  exercised  at  a  time 
when  the  poetic  ambition  of  our  country  greatly 
exceeded  the  technical  skill  of  its  proficients,  and 
when  the  verse-writers  were  glad  to  go  to  school 
to  masters  more  habituated  to  art  and  grace  than 
themselves.  But  we  have  now  another  and  a 
very  curious  phenomenon  to  note.  Fifty  years 
later  than  the  revival  of  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  when 
Elizabethan  literature  was  beginning  to  rise  into  pro- 
minence, several  very  strenuous  efforts  were  made 
to  take  advantage  of  contemporary  French  ac- 
complishment, and  with  one  accord  these  attempts 
conspicuously  failed.  We  find  in  1580  that  the 
French  were  "  highly  regarded  "  by  the  school  of 
versifiers  at  Cambridge,  and  before  this  Edmund 
Spenser  had  translated  the  Visions  of  Joachim  Du 
Bellay.  It  might  be  supposed  that  this  would  be 
the  beginning  of  a  consistent  imitation  of  the 
Pleiade  by  the  English  poets — just,  for  instance, 
as  modern  Swedish  poetry  was  at  this  moment 
started  by  Rosenhane's  imitations  of  Ronsard. 
But  on  the  vast  wave  of  Elizabethan  literature,  now 
sweeping  up  with  irresistible  force  and  volume, 
we  find  scarcely  a  trace  of  the  Pleiade.     The  one 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       345 

important  writer  who  borrowed  from  the  French 
was  Samuel  Daniel,  whose  famous  Delia  of  1592 
obviously  owes  both  its  title  and  its  form  to 
Maurice  Sceve's  De'lie  of  1544.  Daniel  also 
imitates  Baif  and  Pontus  de  Thyard,  and  had  a 
vast  admiration  for  his  more  immediate  contem- 
porary, Philippe  Desportes.^ 

The  experiments  of  Jodelle  and  Garnier  in 
Senecan  drama  were  examined  by  the  English 
dramatists  of  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century — 
by  Kyd  and  Daniel  in  particular — and  were 
deliberately  rejected.  The  pathway  taken  by 
classical  French  tragedy  was  even  touched  for  a 
moment,  in  Titus  Andronicus,  by  Shakespeare  him- 
self, but  it  was  instantly  quitted  for  the  utterly 
divergent  road  which  led  to  Othello  and  King 
Lear.  The  sententious  and  rhetorical  character 
of  French  drama  was  rejected  by  all  the  great 
Elizabethans,  and  the  only  contemporary  influence 
accepted  from  France  by  our  poetry  at  this  time 
was  that  of  Du  Bartas,  whose  violent  and  grotesque 
style  gratified  a  growing  taste  for  exaggeration 
among  the  courtiers.  Du  Bartas  pointed  the  way 
to  that  decadence  which  fell  only  too  swiftly  for 
English  poetry,  like  a  plague  of  insects  upon  some 
glorious  summer  garden.  But  it  is  interesting  to 
observe  that  from  1580  to  1620,  that  is  to  say 
during  the  years  in  which  the  aesthetic  sense  was 
most  widely  and  most  brilliantly  developed  in 
English  poetry,  French  influences  of  the  best  kind 

^  Since  this  was  written,  however,  Mr.  Sidney  Lee,  in  a  valuable 
essay  on  "  The  Elizabethan  Sonnet-Literature  "  (printed  in  June  1904), 
has  drawn  attention  to  Lodge's  indebtedness  to  Ronsard. 


346  FRENCH    PROFILES 

knocked  at  its  door  in  vain.  In  its  superfluous 
richness,  it  needed  no  further  gifts.  It  had  colour 
enough  and  substance  enough  to  spare  for  all  the 
world. 

Very  different  was  the  condition  of  things  fifty 
years  later.  English  poetry  in  the  Jacobean  age 
was  like  a  plant  in  a  hothouse,  that  runs  violently 
to  redundant  blossom,  and  bears  the  germs  of 
swift  decay  in  the  very  splendour  of  its  buds. 
Already,  before  the  death  of  James  I.,  the  fresh- 
ness was  all  gone,  and  the  tendency  to  decline 
was  obvious.  Under  Charles  I.  the  development 
of  literature  was  considerably  warped,  and  at 
length  completely  arrested,  by  the  pressure  of 
political  events.  Then  the  Civil  War  broke  out, 
and  the  English  Court,  with  its  artistic  hangers-on, 
was  dispersed  in  foreign  countries. 

As  early  as  1624,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Marriage  Treaty,  the  attention  of  the  English 
poets  may  probably  have  been  directed  to 
Paris,  but  there  had  followed  grave  estrange- 
ments between  the  Courts  of  France  and  Eng- 
land, and  in  1627  a  disastrous  rupture.  The 
earliest  verses  of  Edmund  Waller  celebrate  in- 
cidents in  Buckingham's  expedition,  and  seem  to 
prove  that  Waller  had  even  then  been  made  aware 
of  the  reforms  in  French  prosody  instituted  by 
Malherbe.  The  Civil  War  broke  out  in  1642, 
and  the  raising  of  the  king's  standard  at  Notting- 
ham was  the  signal  to  the  Muses  to  snatch  up 
their  lyres  and  quit  this  inhospitable  island.  The 
vast  majority  of  our  living  poets  were  Royalists, 
and   when   Charles    I.  was    defeated    they   either 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE        347 

withdrew  into  obscurity  or  left  the  country. 
Suckling  was  already  in  Paris  ;  he  was  followed 
there  by  Cowley,  Waller,  Davenant,  Denham  and 
Roscommon,  that  is  to  say,  by  the  men  who  were 
to  form  poetic  taste  in  England  in  the  succeeding 
generation.  From  1645  to  1660  the  English 
Court  was  in  Continental  exile,  and  it  carried 
about  it  a  troop  of  poets,  who  were  sent,  like  so 
many  carrier  -  pigeons,  upon  wild  diplomatic 
errands. 

It  was  a  great  misfortune  for  English  poetry  that 
it  was  flung  into  the  arms  of  France  at  this  precise 
moment.  What  the  poets  found  in  Paris  was 
not  the  best  that  could  be  given  to  them,  and  what 
there  was  of  the  best  they  did  not  appreciate. 
Their  own  taste  in  its  rapid  decadence  had 
become  fantastical  and  disordered.  We  have  but 
to  look  at  the  early  Odes  of  Abraham  Cowley  to 
see  into  what  peril  English  style  had  sunken.  It 
had  grown  diffuse  and  yet  rugged  ;  it  had  surren- 
dered itself  to  a  wild  abuse  of  metaphor,  and,  con- 
scious of  its  failing  charm,  it  was  trying  to  produce 
an  impression  by  violent  extravagance  of  imagery. 
Its  syntax  had  all  gone  wrong ;  it  had  become  the 
prey  of  tortured  grammatical  inversions. 

It  is  strange  that  in  coming  to  France  the  English 
poets  of  1645  d'^i  ^^^  see  the  misfortune  of  all  this. 
They  should  have  found,  if  they  had  but  had  eyes 
to  perceive  it,  that  French  poetry  was  on  the  high 
road  to  escape  the  very  faults  we  have  just  men- 
tioned. The  fault  of  poetry  such  as  that  of  Waller 
and  Davenant  is  that  it  is  complicated  and  yet 
not  dignified.  Well,  the  English  Royalists  who 
waited  upon  Queen  Henrietta  in  Paris  might  have 


348  FRENCH    PROFILES 

observed  in  the  verses  of  Malherbe  and  Racan 
poetry  which  was  majestic  and  yet  simple,  an 
expression  of  true  and  beautiful  sentiments  in 
language  of  pure  sobriety.  But  these  were  the 
new  classics  of  France,  and  the  English  exiles  had 
been  educated  in  a  taste  which  was  utterly  anti- 
classic.  They  could  not  comprehend  Malherbe, 
who  was  too  stately  for  them,  but  unfortunately 
there  were  other  influences  which  exactly  suited 
their  habits  of  mind.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  they  were  pleased  with  the  posthumous  writ- 
ings of  Th^ophile  de  Viau,  whose  nature-painting 
has  left  its  mark  on  Cowley,  and  unquestionably, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  they  were  enchanted 
with  the  fantastic,  almost  burlesque  talent  of  Saint- 
Amant,  who  ruled  the  salons  of  Paris  during  the 
whole  of  the  English  Exile,  and  who  seemed  to  his 
admirers  of  1650  a  very  great  poet  whom  it  was  a 
distinction  to  imitate. 

The  English  ear  for  rhythm  is  not  constituted 
like  the  French  ear.  We  have  a  prosodical  instinct 
which  is  entirely  unlike  yours.  This  was  ill  com- 
prehended, or  rather  not  comprehended  at  all,  by 
the  English  Exiles.  They  were  confronted  by 
the  severity  of  Malherbe  and  the  uniformity  of 
Maynard,  and  they  were  unable  to  appreciate 
either  the  one  or  the  other.  The  English  sub- 
limity, as  exemplified  at  that  very  hour  by  the 
majesty  of  Milton,  is  obtained  by  quite  other 
means.  The  sympathy  of  the  English  poets  was 
with  what  is  irregular,  and  they  never  were  genuine 
classics,  like  the  French,  but  merely,  in  ceasing  to 
be  romantic,  became  pseudo-classical.     The  very 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       349 

type  of  a  pseudo-classic  in  revolt  against  romance 
is  Denham,  in  his  extravagantly-praised  Cooper's 
Hill.  To  compare  this  with  the  exquisite  Retraite 
of  Racan,  with  which  it  is  almost  exactly  con- 
temporaneous, is  to  realise  what  the  difference 
is  between  a  falsely  and  a  genuinely  classical 
poem.  Racan's  lines  seem  to  be  breathed  out 
without  effort  from  a  pure  Latin  mind ;  the 
couplets  of  Denham  are  like  the  shout  of  a 
barbarian,  who  has  possessed  himself  of  a  toga, 
indeed,  but  has  no  idea  of  how  it  ought  to  be 
worn. 

It  is  noticeable  that  foreigners  are  seldom 
influenced  in  their  style  by  their  immediate  con- 
temporaries in  another  country.  The  prestige  of 
public  acceptance  is  required  before  an  alien 
dares  to  imitate.  Hence  we  search  almost  in 
vain  for  traces  of  direct  relation  between  the 
Parisian  Precieux  and  their  British  brethren. 
There  is  little  evidence  that  Voiture  or  Bense- 
rade  had  admirers  among  the  Exiles,  although 
they  returned  to  England  with  ideas  about  pas- 
toral, which  I  think  they  must  have  owed  to 
the  ^glogues  of  Segrais.  But  it  is  certain  that 
they  were  infatuated  by  the  burlesque  writers  of 
France,  and  that  Scarron,  in  particular,  was 
instantly  imitated.  The  Virgile  Travesti  was  ex- 
travagantly admired  and  promptly  paraphrased 
in  England,  and  in  Cotton  we  had  a  poet  who 
deliberately  and  with  great  popular  success  set 
out  to  be  the  English  Scarron.  Trivial  in  French, 
these  burlesque  exercises  became  in  English 
intolerably   heavy   and   vulgarly    obscene.       The 


350  FRENCH    PROFILES 

taste  for  rhymed  burlesque  was  a  poor  gift  for 
the  Exiles  to  bring  back  with  them  from  the 
country  which  already  possessed  the  Adonis  of 
La  Fontaine. 

In  offering  to  their  countrymen  the  forms  of 
French  poetry,  without  giving  them  any  of  its 
enchanting  dignity  and  harmony,  the  English 
poets  of  the  Restoration  were  doing  the  exact 
opposite  of  what  Chaucer  had  done  in  the  four- 
teenth century.  They  imported  the  substance 
without  the  colour ;  they  neglected  precisely  the 
gift  which  our  neighbour  has  always  had  to 
bestow,  namely,  the  charm  of  aesthetic  propor- 
tion. They  were  partly  unfortunate,  no  doubt,  in 
the  moment  of  their  return  to  London.  It  was  in 
the  very  year  1660  that  the  great  revival  of  poetic 
taste  began  in  Paris,  and,  by  coming  back  to  their 
exciting  duties  and  pleasures  at  that  moment,  the 
English  exiles  excluded  themselves  from  participa- 
tion in  Boileau,  Moliere,  and  Racine.  But  would 
they  have  learned  to  appreciate  these  great  masters 
if  the  restoration  of  the  House  of  Stuart  had  been 
delayed  for  twenty  years  ?  It  is  permissible  to 
believe  that  they  would  not. 

The  invasion  of  the  British  stage  by  French 
drama  between  1665  and  1690,  is  the  most 
striking  example  of  the  influence  of  French  taste 
which  the  history  of  English  poetry  has  to  offer. 
The  theatres  had  been  closed  by  an  ordinance  of 
the  Puritan  government,  and  all  performance  of 
plays  forbidden  throughout  England  in  1642.  So 
savage  was  the  enactment  that  the  theatres  were 
dismantled,  in  order  to   make   acting  impossible, 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       351 

while  all   actors   in   plays,   even   in    private,  were 
liable  to  be  publicly  whipped,  and  the  audiences 
individually  fined.     The  result  of  this  savage  law 
was  that  the  very  tradition  of  histrionics  died  out 
in  England,  which  had  been  the  most  theatrical 
country  in   Europe.     It  was  not  one  of  the  least 
satisfactions  to  the  banished  Royalists  in  Paris  that 
they  could  enjoy  their  beloved  entertainment  there, 
as   it  was   no   longer  possible  to   do  in  London. 
They    could    not    sit    through     performances     of 
Fletcher  and  Massinger  and  Ford,  but  they  could 
delight  their  eyes  and  their  ears  with  the  tragedies 
of   Scud^ry   and   Tristan   I'Hermite   and    La   Cal- 
pren^de.     You  will  remind  me  that  they  could  do 
better  than  this  by  attending  the  dramas  of  Rotrou 
and  ten  times  better  by  studying  those  of  Corneille 
But  the  curious  thing  is  that  while  there  are  de- 
finite traces  of  La  Calprenede  and  Scud^ry  on  our 
English  drama,  there  is  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  a 
vestige   of   Rotrou,   and   the    English    attitude    to 
Corneille     is    very    extraordinary.       A    poetaster, 
named  Joseph   Rutter,  translated  Le  Cid  as  early 
as  1637,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  midst  of  Corneille's 
original   triumph  ;    it   is   interesting   to   note   that 
Rutter's  version  was  made  at  the  command  of  the 
English  king  and  queen.   This  bad  translation,  which 
enjoyed  no  success,  sufficed  for  English  curiosity. 
On    the    other    hand,    Les    Horaces    was    a    great 
favourite  in  England,  and  was  carefully  translated 
into  verse  by  three  or  four  poets.     Some  couplets 
by  Sir  John  Denham,  accompanying  the  version 
made  about    1660  by  the  matchless  Orinda,  have 
a  particular  interest  for  us.     Denham  (who  was, 


352  FRENCH    PROFILES 

we  must  remember,  the  Racan  of  the  classical 
movement  in  England)  says  of  Les  Horaces : — 

"  This  martial  story,  which  through  France  did  come, 
And  there  was  wrought  on  great  Corneille's  loom, 
Orinda's  matchless  muse  to  Britain  brought, 
And  foreign  verse  our  English  accents  taught." 

The  total  ignoring  of  the  Cidy  while  Les  Horaces 
received  boundless  admiration,  is  a  curious  fact, 
which  can  only,  I  think,  become  intelligible  when 
we  obs^ve  that  to  an  English  audience  in  1665 
the  chivalry  and  panache  of  the  former  play  were 
unintelligible,  while  the  showy  patriotism  and 
high-strung  amorosity  of  the  other  were  exactly 
to  the  English  taste.  Wherever  Corneille's  psy- 
chological study  of  the  human  heart  became 
subtle,  he  rose  above  the  range  of  the  Royalist 
exiles.  In  the  English  tragedies  of  the  Restora- 
tion we  see  the  predominant  part  which  violent 
passion  took  in  the  interest  of  the  age.  This, 
together  with  the  laborious  and  unflagging  em- 
phasis which  becomes  to  us  so  tedious  in  these 
dramatic  writers,  the  English  poets  borrowed,  not 
from  Corneille,  whom  they  venerated  but  hardly 
comprehended,  but  from  the  lesser  heroic  drama- 
tists of  the  same  age. 

A  little  later  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when 
the  great  men  had  made  their  appearance  in 
France,  the  English  dramatists  could  no  longer 
overlook  Moliere  and  Racine ;  but  the  luminous 
wit  of  the  one  and  the  harmonious  and  passionate 
tenderness  of  the  other  were  beyond  their  reach. 
There  is  evidence  of  the  favour  which  Quinault, 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE        353 

especially  for  his  Roman  tragedies,  enjoyed  in 
London,  and  there  was  something  in  his  colour- 
less, melodious,  and  graceful  style  which  attracted 
and  did  not  terrify  the  contemporary  English 
translator.  The  want  of  interest  shown  by  the 
London  adapters  in  the  successive  masterpieces  of 
Racine  is  quite  extraordinary.  A  solitary  attempt 
was  made  in  1675  by  John  Crowne,  or  under  his 
auspices,  to  bring  Andromaque  on  the  English 
stage,  but  shorn  of  all  its  tender  beauty.  This, 
amazing  as  it  sounds,  is  practically  the  only 
evidence  remaining  to  show  that  our  Gallicised 
playwrights  were  conscious  of  the  existence  of 
Racine.  The  fact  is,  no  doubt,  that  he  soared 
above  their  reach  in  his  celestial  emotion,  his 
delicate  passion  and  his  penetration  into  the 
human  heart.  English  versification  in  1675  was 
capable  of  rough  and  vigorous  effects,  music  of 
the  drum  and  the  fife  ;  but  it  had  no  instrument 
at  its  command  at  that  time  which  could  repro- 
duce the  notes  of  Racine  upon  the  violin.  Here 
was  an  instance  of  colour  which  was  evanescent 
and  could  not  be  transferred.  The  substance  of 
Moli^re,  on  the  other  hand,  offered  no  technical 
difficulties.  It  is  extraordinary  how  many  of 
Moli^re's  plays  were  imitated  or  adapted  on  the 
English  stage  during  his  life-time  or  very  shortly 
after  the  close  of  it.  Our  great  Dryden  mingled 
L'^tourdi  with  the  Amant  Indiscret  of  Quinault,  and 
as  the  result  produced  Sir  Martin  Mar-all  in  1667. 
He  used  the  De'pit  Amoureux  and  Les  Precieuses 
Ridicules  in  adapting  Thomas  Corneille's  arrange- 
ment of  El  Astrologp  fingido  of  Calderon,  in  1668. 

z 


354  FRENCH    PROFILES 

The  English  playwrights,  however,  had  no  real  ap- 
preciation of  Moliere,  though  they  stole  from  him 
so  freely.  The  poetess,  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn,  being 
accused  in  1678  of  borrowing  scenes  from  the 
**  Malad  Imagenere"  (as  she  called  it),  admitted 
frankly  that  she  had  done  so,  but  "  infinitely  to 
Moleer's  advantage." 

The  poetry  of  France  in  the  third  quarter  of 
the  seventeenth  century  is  pre-eminently  char- 
acteristic of  a  grave  and  polished  system  of 
society.  The  age  of  Racine  was,  and  could  not 
but  be,  an  age  of  extreme  refinement.  It  was 
useless  for  the  crude  contemporary  dramatists  of 
London  to  take  the  substance  of  the  Parisian 
masterpieces,  since  their  spirit  absolutely  evaded 
them.  English  society  under  Charles  II.  had 
elements  of  force  and  intellectual  curiosity,  but 
it  lacked  exactly  what  Paris  possessed — the  orna- 
ment of  polished,  simple,  and  pure  taste.  In 
the  jargon  of  the  time  Racine  and  Moliere  were 
"  correct,"  while  even  English  poets  of  genius,  such 
as  Dryden  and  Otway,  hardly  knew  that  "  correct- 
ness "  existed.  Hence  Boileau,  in  whom  "  correct- 
ness "  took  the  form  of  a  doctrinal  system,  made 
no  impression  at  all  upon  the  English  poetry  of 
his  own  time.  He  could  not  act  upon  English 
social  thought  until  England  ceased  to  be  bar- 
barous, and  it  is,  therefore,  not  until  the  age  of 
Queen  Anne  that  the  powerful  influence  of 
Boileau,  like  a  penetrating  odour,  is  perceived 
in  English  poetry,  and  above  all  in  the  verse 
of  Pope.  In  the  First  Epistle  of  the  Second  Book, 
published   in    1737,  that  great   poet   reviews  the 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE         355 

literature  of    the   last  seventy  years    in    lines    of 
extraordinary  strength  and  conciseness  : — 

"  We  conquered  France,  but  felt  our  captive's  charms  ; 
Her  arts  victorious  triumph'd  o'er  our  arms  : 
Britain  to  soft  refinements  less  a  foe, 
Wit  grew  polite,  and  numbers  learned  to  flow. 
Waller  was  smooth  ;  but  Dryden  taught  to  join 
The  varying  verse,  the  full-resounding  line. 
The  long  majestic  march  and  energy  divine. 
Though  still  some  traces  of  our  rustic  vein 
And  splay-foot  verse  remained,  and  will  remain. 
Late,  very  late,  correctness  grew  our  care, 
When  the  tired  nation  breath'd  from  civil  war. 
Exact  Racine  and  Corneille's  noble  fire 
Showed  us  that  France  had  something  to  admire. 
Not  but  the  tragic  spirit  was  our  own. 
And  fiiU  in  Shakespeare,  fair  in  Otway  shone. 
But  Otway  failed  to  polish  or  refine. 
And  fluent  Shakespeare  scarce  effaced  a  line." 

When  Pope  wrote  these  vigorous  verses,  he  had 
reached  the  meridian  of  his  art.  He  was  the 
greatest  living  poet  not  only  of  England,  but  of 
the  world.  He  had  to  look  back  over  a  literary 
career  of  nearly  forty  years,  which  had  been  a  per- 
petual triumph,  yet  in  the  course  of  which  he  had 
been  steadily  conducted  by  the  genius  of  Boileau, 
who  had  died  in  body  exactly  at  the  moment 
when  Pope  was  giving  new  lustre  to  his  spirit. 
No  critic  of  authority  will  question  that  Pope  was 
a  greater  writer  than  Boileau,  excellent  as  the  latter 
is.  In  the  innumerable  instances  where  direct 
comparison  between  them  is  invited,  the  richness 
of  Pope's  language,  the  picturesque  fulness  of  his 
line,  transcends  the  art  of  Boileau.  But  there  is 
always  due  a  peculiar  honour  to  the  artist  who  is 


356  FRENCH    PROFILES 

a  forerunner,   and  this  belongs  to  the  author   of 
Le  Lutrin. 

The  qualities  which  entered  the  English  poetry  of 
the  eighteenth  century  came  through  Pope,  but  they 
had  their  source  in  Boileau.  From  him,  enemy 
as  he  was  to  affectation,  pedantry  and  spurious 
emphasis,  we  learned  that  a  verse,  whether  good 
or  bad,  should  at  least  say  something.  Boileau's 
attitude  of  "  honest  zeal  "  commended  itself,  theo- 
retically if  not  always  practically,  to  the  mind  of 
Pope,  who  is  never  tired  of  praising  the  French- 
man, "  that  most  candid  satirist."  Both  imitated 
Horace,  but  even  Pope's  vanity  could  not  conceal 
the  fact  that  he  studied  the  great  Roman  master 
mainly  in  the  l^pttres  of  Boileau.  We  have  here 
an  excellent  example  of  the  kind  of  influence  of 
which  we  found  an  example  so  many  centuries 
back  in  Chaucer.  Here  it  is  not  a  dull  transference 
of  material,  ill-comprehended,  ill-digested,  from 
one  literature  to  another.  It  is  the  capture  of  the 
transient  charm,  the  colour  and  odour  of  a  living 
art.  Few  exercises  in  criticism  would  be  more 
instructive  than  an  analysis  of  French  influences 
on  the  splendid  poetry  of  Pope.  They  mainly  re- 
solve themselves  into  the  results  of  a  patient  and 
intelligent  study  of  Boileau.  If  we  compare  the 
Essay  on  Criticism  with  the  Art  Poe'tique  we  see 
the  young  Pope  at  the  feet  of  the  ancient  tyrant 
of  letters  ;  if  we  place  Le  Lutrin  by  the  side 
of  The  Rape  of  the  Lock  we  see  the  knack  of 
mock-heroic  caught,  and  developed,  and  raised  to 
a  pinnacle  of  technical  beauty.  The  Epistle  to 
Dr.  Arbuthnot  is  vastly  superior  to  the  poem  A  son 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE        357 

Esprit,  but  Pope  would  never  have  traversed  the 
road  if  Boileau  had  not  pointed  out  the  way. 
Pope  captured  the  very  touch  of  Boileau,  but  he 
heightened  it,  and  he  made  it  English.  How 
English  he  made  it  can  be  seen  from  the  fact  that 
the  manner  spread,  as  Pope's  and  as  English,  to 
the  literatures  of  Italy,  Sweden,  and  even  of 
Russia. 

It  spread,  moreover,  to  the  whole  of  the  fashion 
of  poetry  to  be  written  in  Pope's  own  England 
through  the  remainder  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
Even  where  that  fashion  turned  to  forms  more  un- 
classical  or  even  languidly  romantic,  a  faint  varnish 
of  Pope's  precision  continued  to  characterise  it. 
But  during  the  eighteenth  century  (that  epoch  so 
curious  in  the  history  of  poetry,  where  everything 
seemed  to  combine  to  hold  the  imagination  in  a 
static  if  not  in  a  semi-paralysed  condition)  there 
was  no  more  display  of  influence  from  France  on 
England.  What  influence  there  was  was  exercised 
all  in  the  reverse  direction.  The  moral  disquisition 
in  exquisitely-serried  couplets  gave  way  in  some 
degree  to  descriptive  poetry  as  Thomson  devised 
it,  to  lyrical  poetry  as  it  was  conceived  by  Gray. 
But  these  writers,  eminent  enough  in  their  place 
and  their  degree,  not  only  owed  nothing  to  France, 
but  they  exerted  an  immediate  influence  on  the 
poets  of  that  country.  The  Abb6  Delille,  with  his 
olives  and  his  vines,  his  corn-fields  and  his  gardens 
and  his  bees,  was  inspired  in  the  second  degree, 
no  doubt,  by  Virgil,  but  in  the  first  degree,  unques- 
tionably, by  the  natural  descriptions  of  the  English 
poets  of  the  preceding  generation. 


358  FRENCH    PROFILES 

When  we  come  to  the  dawn  of  a  new  age,  when 
we  examine  for  exotic  impressions  the  writings  of 
the  pioneers  of  the  romantic  revival,  we  find  that 
the  prestige  is  still  all  on  the  side  of  Great  Britain. 
On  Cowper  and  Burns  and  Blake  we  discover  no 
trace  of  any  consciousness  of  foreign  influence, 
other  than  is  indicated  by  an  occasional  and 
usually  hostile  acknowledgment  of  the  existence 
of  Voltairfe  and  Rousseau  on  the  prosaic  confines 
of  the  art.  Quite  different  is  the  case  in  France, 
when  we  approach  a  writer  in  some  respects  more 
modern  than  either  Cowper  or  Burns,  namely, 
Andre  Ch^nier,  the  more  conventional  parts  of 
whose  works  display,  to  an  English  reader,  a  far 
greater  pre-occupation  with  English  poetry  than, 
I  believe,  any  French  critic  has  noted.  In  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  deplorable 
didacticism  of  verse,  with  the  tedium  of  its  topo- 
graphical and  descriptive  pieces,  of  its  odes  to 
Inoculation  and  to  The  Genius  of  the  Thames,  of 
its  epics  on  the  cultivation  of  the  sugar-cane, 
and  the  breeding  of  sheep  and  the  navigation  of 
sailing-vessels,  although  it  took  its  start  from  a 
misconception  of  the  teaching  of  Boileau,  had  long 
ceased  to  be  definitely  French,  and  had  become 
technically  British  in  character.  But  the  group 
of  Parisian  poets,  so  solemn  and  so  deadly  dull, 
who  formed  the  court  of  Delille  after  the  French 
Revolution,  were  the  disciples  of  the  verse  of 
Thomson,  in  fact,  as  much  as  in  theory  they  were 
the  pupils  of  the  prose  of  BufTon. 

The   reaction    against    dryness  and    flatness   in 
imaginative  literature  was  complete  and  systematic 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE        359 

in  England  long  before  it  had  been  accepted  by 
the  intelligent  classes  in  France.  The  authority  of 
Chateaubriand,  although  most  of  his  important  work 
was  published  already,  was  not  in  any  wide  degree 
accepted  until  after  18 10,  even  if  this  be  not  too 
early  a  date  to  suggest  for  it,  while  the  formular 
tendency  of  the  whole  work  of  the  author  of  Alala 
and  Rene  was  rather  to  the  revival  of  a  vivid, 
picturesque,  and  imaginative  prose  than  to  the 
study  of  verse.  But  in  England,  before  1 8 1  o,  the 
revolution  was  complete  in  the  essential  art  of 
poetry  itself.  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  had 
completed  their  reform,  and  it  was  of  a  nature 
absolutely  radical.  In  1798  they  had  determined 
that  "  the  passions  of  men  should  be  incorporated 
with  the  beautiful  and  permanent  forms  of  nature," 
and  they  had,  working  on  those  lines,  added  to 
the  poetry  of  the  world  some  of  its  most  perfect 
and  its  most  durable  ornaments.  Crabbe,  Camp- 
bell, even  Sir  Walter  Scott,  had  completely  re- 
vealed the  nature  of  their  genius  before  France 
was  awakened  to  the  full  lesson  of  Chateaubriand. 
When  the  second  romantic  epoch  was  revealed  in 
France,  the  great  era  in  England  was  over.  The 
year  1822,  which  saw  Alfred  de  Vigny,  Victor 
Hugo,  and  Lamartine  ascend  the  Parisian  horizon 
as  a  new  constellation  of  unequalled  effulgence, 
saw  the  burial  of  Shelley  in  that  Roman  garden  of 
death  where  Keats  had  shortly  before  been  laid, 
and  saw  the  retirement  of  Byron  to  Genoa,  his 
latest  Italian  home. 

It  was  physically  impossible,  therefore,  that  the 
belated  Romantiques  in  France,  at  the  beginning  of 


360  FRENCH    PROFILES 

the  nineteenth  century,  could  exercise  any  influence 
over  their  British  brethren,  who  had  been  roused 
from  slumber  one  watch  earlier  than  they  had. 
Far  north,  in  the  valleys  of  Somerset,  by  the  Isis 
at  Oxford,  long  before  there  was  any  motion  of 
life  by  the  Seine  or  by  the  Rhone,  the  spirit  of 
living  poetry  had  arisen,  singing,  from  the  ground, 
and  the  boyish  Lamartine  and  Vigny,  had  they 
been  aware  of  the  fact,  might  have  whispered  of 
their  English  predecessors  in  1810  : — 

"  By  rose-hung  river  and  light-foot  rill 

There  are  who  rest  not,  who  think  long 

Till  they  discern  as  from  a  hill 

At  the  sun's  hour  of  morning  song, 

Known  of  souls  only,  and  those  souls  free, 

The  sacred  spaces  of  the  sea." 

The  English  Romantics  of  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  earnestly  and  pointedly  repu- 
diated the  influence  which  French  poetry  had 
exercised  in  England  a  hundred  years  earlier. 
This  deliberate  revolt  finds  a  very  interesting 
expression  in  the  Sleep  and  Poetry  of  Keats,  a 
poem  of  much  importance  in  the  history  of 
criticism.  Sleep  and  Poetry  was  written  in  181 6, 
six  years  before  the  first  C6nacle  was  formed 
in  Paris,  and  four  years  before  the  publication  of 
Lamartine's  Meditations  Poe'tiques.  In  the  course  of 
it,  Keats  describes  the  practice  of  the  Anglo-Gallic 
writers  of  verse  in  picturesque  and  stringent  lan- 
guage, culminating  in  an  attack  on  the  impeccable 
Boileau  himself.     He  says  : — 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE       361 

*'A  schism 
Nurtured  by  foppery  and  barbarism 
Made  great  Apollo  blush  for  this  his  land. 
Men  were  thought  wise  who  could  not  understand 
His  glories  :  with  a  puling  infant's  force 
They  swayed  about  upon  a  rocking-horse 
And  thought  it  Pegasus.  .  .   .  Ill-fated  race  ! 
That  blasphemed  the  bright  Lyrist  to  his  face 
And  did  not  know  it, — no,  they  went  about, 
Holding  a  poor,  decrepit  standard  out, 
Mark'd  with  most  flimsy  mottoes,  and  in  large 
The  name  of  one  BoiLF.AU  ! " 

During  the  ninety  years  which  separate  us  from 
the  early  enthusiasms  of  Keats  and  Shelley,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  this  influence  of  France  has 
to  any  marked  degree  asserted  itself  on  the  poetry 
of  England.  It  would  be  in  the  highest  degree 
fantastic  to  pretend  that  it  can  be  traced  on  the 
texture  of  Tennyson  or  of  the  Brownings.  It  is 
a  remarkable  fact  that  the  genius  of  Victor  Hugo, 
although  of  such  overwhelming  force  among  the 
Latin  nations,  failed  to  awaken  the  least  echo  in  the 
poets  of  the  North.  The  allusions  to  Hugo  in  the 
writings  of  his  greatest  immediate  contemporaries 
in  England  are  ludicrously  perfunctory  and  un- 
appreciative.  Tennyson  addressed  to  him  a  well- 
intentioned  sonnet  which  is  a  monument  of  tact- 
lessness, in  which  Victor  Hugo  is  addressed  as 
"  Weird  Titan "  and  in  which  the  summit  of 
the  French  poet's  performance  appears  to  have 
been  reached  in  his  having  been  polite  to  one  of 
Tennyson's  sons.  "  Victor  in  drama,  victor  in 
romance,"  the  English  poet  sings  in  artless 
wit,  and  shows  no  appreciation  whatever  of  the 
unmatched  victories   in   the    splendour  and    per- 


362  FRENCH    PROFILES 

fection  of  lyrical  melody.  It  was  Mr.  Swin- 
burne who,  about  1866,  earliest  insisted  on  the 
supremacy  of  Victor  Hugo  : — 

"  Thou  art  chief  of  us,  and  lord; 

Thy  song  is  as  a  sword 
Keen-edged  and  scented  in  the  blade  from  flowers  ; 

Thou  art  lord  and  king  ;  but  we 

Lift  younger  eyes,  and  see 
Less  of  high  hope,  less  light  on  wandering  hours." 

In  spite,  however,  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  reiterated 
praise  of  that  "  imperial  soul,"  and  of  the  respect- 
ful study  which  has  been  given  to  the  poet  in 
England  for  the  last  forty  years,  Victor  Hugo  has 
asserted  little  or  no  influence  on  English  poetry. 
Much  lesser  talents  than  his,  however,  have  offered 
in  the  later  years  of  the  century  a  colour  to  a 
certain  school  of  our  poets,  and  it  is  in  Th^ophile 
Gautier  and  Theodore  de  Banville  that  our  English 
Parnassians  found  something  of  the  same  aesthetic 
stimulus  that  their  predecessors  of  the  fourteenth 
century  found  in  Guillaume  de  Machault  and 
Eustache  Deschamps. 

But  our  hour  is  over,  and  this  brief  and  imper- 
fect discourse  must  come  to  an  end.  We  have 
very  lightly  touched  on  the  events  of  six  hundred 
years.  Are  we  to  speculate,  imperfect  prophets 
that  we  are,  on  the  future  relations  of  the  two  great 
countries  of  the  west,  which,  far  beyond  all  others, 
have  always  been  in  the  vanguard  of  liberty  and 
light  ?  That  is  a  feat  of  daring  beyond  my  limited 
imagination.  But  I  cannot  help  nourishing  a 
confident  belief  that  in  the  future,  as  well  as  in 


FRENCH    INFLUENCE        363 

the  past,  the  magnificent  literatures  of  France  and 
of  England  will  interact  upon  one  another,  that 
each  will  at  the  right  psychological  moments  flash 
colour  and  radiance  which  will  find  reflection  on 
the  polished  surface  of  the  other.  To  facilitate 
this,  in  ever  so  small  and  so  humble  a  degree,  must 
be  the  desire  of  every  lover  of  England  and  of 
France.  And  in  order  to  adopt  from  each  what 
shall  be  serviceable  to  the  other,  what  is  most 
needful  must  be  a  condition  of  mutual  intelligence. 
That  entente  cordiale  which  we  value  so  deeply,  and 
which  some  of  us  have  so  long  laboured  to  pro- 
mote,— it  must  not  be  confined  to  the  merchants 
and  to  the  politicians.  The  poets  also  must  insist 
upon  their  share  of  it. 


INDEX 


Abbi     Constantin,     M,     Ludovic 

Hal^vy,  274 
Abbi  Mouret,  Zola's,  132 
Abbd  RoideUt,  Fabre,  F.,  160 
Abbi   Tigrane,    Fabre's,    153,   i6o, 

161,  162,  163,  166,  179 
Addison,  Joseph,  184 
Adelaide    du     Guesclin,   Voltaire, 

45.58 
Aiss6,  Mademoiselle,  35-67 
Alcaforada,  Mariana,  72.    See  Mari- 
ana 
Alexis,  Paul,  131,  133,  141 
Alfieri,  98 

Amaidie,  d'Aurevilly's,  94-95 
Amant  Indiscret,  Quinault's,  353 
Amour  Impossible,  d'Aurevilly,  95 
Amour  Marin,    M.    Paul    Fort's, 

327 
Amoureuses,  Les,  Daudet,  114,  126 
Andromaque,  Racine's,  353 
Anneau  d Amithyste,  269 
Annunzio,  G.  de,  196,  246 
Aphrodite,  M.  Pierre  Louys,  271 
Apres-Midi  d'un  Faune,  Mallarm^'s, 

307.  309 
Arithuse,    M.     de    R6gnier,    294, 

295 
Argental,   Comte   d',    38,    51,    52, 

60 
Armand,  the  actor,  53 
Arnold,  Matthew,  2,  30,  197,  301 
Art  Poitique,  Boileau,  356 
Asse,  M.  Eugfene,  49,  88 
Atala,  Chateaubriand,  359 
Athies,  A  un  Dinerd',  d'Aurevilly, 

96,  105,  106 


Au  Maroc,  P.  Loti,  225 
Aumont,  Due  d',  57 
Aurevilly,  Jules  Barbey  d',  93-107 
Avec    Trois    Mille    Cent    Francs, 

Daudet,  113 
Aventures  du  Grand  Sidoine,  Zola, 

134 
d'Aydie,   Chevalier    Blaise    Marie, 

45-48,  51,  55,  56,  57,  60-61.  62, 

63,  64,  65 
Aziyadi,  P.  Loti,  204,  219 

BaTf,  345 

Ballades  Franfaises,  M.  Paul  Fort's, 

325 
Balthasar,  A.  France,  191 
Balzac,  Honors  de,  127,  160,  246, 

267,  270 

(John  Louis  Guez),  69,  70 

Banville,  Theodore  de,  362 
Barante,  M.  de,  49 
Barbauld,  Mrs.,  290 
Barbin,  Paris  publisher,  71 
Bamabi,  Fabre  F.,  160 
Barr^s,  M.  Maurice,  261,  271 
Barrie,  Mr.,  268 
Batilliat,  M.  Marcel,  300 
Baudelaire,  C,  318,  319,  324,  329, 

333 
Bazin,  M.  Ren6,  273-290 
Beauvois,    M. ,   72,  73,  75,  76,  88, 

89,  90 
B^darieux,     154,    155,    159,     172, 

180 
Beerbohm,  Mr.  Max,  100 
Behn,  Mrs.  Aphra,  354 
Beja,  72,  75,  77,  88,  91 


36s 


366 


INDEX 


Benserade,  349 

Bercail,  Fabre,  F. ,  Le,  160 

Bernard,  Claude,  152 

Berry,  Mde.  la  Duchesse  de,  45 

Blake.  William,  358 

Boccaccio,  341,  342 

Boileau,  85,  350,  354,  3SS-357.  3S8. 

361 
Boissier,  M.  Gaston,  69 
Boissonade,  M. ,  72 
Bolingbroke,  Lady.     See  Villette 

Lord,  41,  42,  44,  45,  48,  58 

Bonheur  dans  le  Crime,  Le,  d'Aure- 

villy,  98,  105,  106 
Bon  Plaisir,  M.  de  R6gnier's  Le, 

302 
Boufflers,  130 
Bouillon,  Duchesse  de,  59 
Boule   de   Suif,    M.    Maupassant, 

142 
Bourges,  M.  itl^mir,  272 
Bourget,    M.    Paul,   94,    113,    138, 

180,  269,  239-270 
Bournonville,    Mme.    la    Princesse 

de,  52 
Bouton,  Noel,  Count  of  St.  L^ger- 

sur-Dheune,  73.     See  Chamilly 
Bridges,  Mr.  Robert,  323 
Browning,  Elizabeth,  249,  361 
Brutnmell,   Du    Dandyisme  et    de 

Georges,  94,  100,  101 
Brunetifere,  M. ,  269 
Buffon,  358 
Bunbury ,  Miss  Lydia,  later  Comtesse 

de  Vigny,  13,  14 

Sir  Edward,  13 

Burle,     Zola's  Le  Capitaine,   145, 

146 
Burns,  Robert,  358 
Byron,  Lord,  5,  10,  11,  13,  31,  98, 

99.  loi,  315,  359 

Calandrini,  Madame,  48,  49,  55, 

56,  59,  61,  62,  66 
Calpren^de,  Gautier  La,  351 
Campbell,  Thomas,  359 
Canterbury  Tales,  Chaucer,  341 
Cantilines,  Les,  Moreas',  186 


Carlyle,  Thomas,  100,  195 
Carnet  de  Danse ,  Zola's,  131 
C^ard,  M.  Henri,  142 
Celle  qui  m'aime,    Zola,    133,  134, 

13s 
Chamilly,    Marquis   of,   71,  72,  74, 

75.  n<  78,  86,  88 
Chanson  de  Roland,  6,  337 
Chapone,  Mrs.,  290 
Charcot,  the  physician,  no 
Chariot  d^  Or,  A.  Samain's,  320 
Chateaubriand,    F.    de,  5,   94,   95, 

359 
Chats,     Les    Paradis     des,     Zola, 

138 
Chatterton,      Thomas,      19,      20; 

Vigny's  tragedy,  21 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,    334,   338-342, 

356 
Ch^nier,  Andr^,  2,  5,  19,  296,  301, 

358 
Cherbuliez,  V.,  268 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  212 
Chevrier,     Fabre,     F. ,     160,    177, 

180 
Christianisme,  Ginie  du,  Chateau- 
briand, 5 
Chrys  ant  heme,  Loti's  Madame,  204 
Cid,  Corneille's,  351 
Cinq-Mars,  Vigny,  12 
CM  des  Eaux,  M.  Henri  de  R6g- 

nier's,  297-302 
Claretie,  M.  Jules,  118,  153 
Cmie,  Mile.  Scud6ry,  69 
Coignard,  M.  Jirdme,  A.   France, 

191 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  7,  333,  359 
Complications  Sentimentales ,   Paul 

Bourget,  250-252 
Contes  d  Ninon ,  Zola,  135 
Contes  d  Ninon,  Zola's  Nouveaux , 

136-139 
Contes  Choisis,  Daudet,  114,  128 
Contes  de  Lundi,  Daudet,  113 
Copp6e,  M.  Fran9ois,  320 
Corneille,  P. ,  69 

Thomas,  353 

Cotton,  Charles,  349 


INDEX 


367 


Cowley,  Abraham,  347 

Cowper,  William,  358 

Crabbe,  George,  315,  359 

Cr6billon,  130 

Critne     (f  Amour,      Un,    Bourget, 

236 
Criticism,  Pojie's  Essay  on,  356 
Crowne,  John,  353 

Dame  Romaine,  La,  Vigny,  5 
Dandy   davant    les   Dandy s,    Un, 

d'Aurevilly,  100 
Daniel,  Samuel,  Delia,  345 
Dante,  2,  132,  342 
Daudet,  Alphonse,  108-128,  268 
M.  Ernest,  Mon  Frtre  et  Moi, 

III,  112 
Davenant,  Sir  William,  347 
D3dcles,  M.  Verhaeren,  Les,  314 
Deffand,  Madame  du,  44,  45,  46, 

59,  66 
Delavigne,  Casimir,  16 
Delille.  The  Abb6,  357,  358 
Delpit,  M.  Albert,  121 
Deluge,  Le,  Vigny,  9 
Denham,  Sir  John,  347,  349,  351 ; 

Cooper  s  Hill,  349 
Ddpit  Amoureux,  Moli^res,  353 
Diracines,    M.    Harris'   Les,    261, 

271 
Deschamps,  Emile,  6 

Eustache,  340,  341,  342,  362; 

Disert,  Le,  P.  Loti's,  203,  204,  205- 

207,  208,  209,  210,  216 
Desportes,  Philippe,  345 
Dessous  des  Cartes,  Le,  d'Aurevilly, 

105,  106 
Destinies,  Les,  Vigny,  3 
Destouches,  N.,  36,  58 
De  Toute  son  Ame,  M.  Ren6  Bazin, 

281-283 
Diaboliques,  Les,  d'Aurevilly,  106 
Dickens,    Charles,    102,  103,    121, 

246 
Don  Juan,  Le  Plus  Bel  Amour  de, 

d'Aurevilly,  99,  106 
Donne,  John,  311 
Dorval,  Marie,  16-17,  18,  21 


Double  Conversion,  La,  Daudet,  114 
Double  Maitresse,  La,  M.  Henri  de 

R^gnier,  302 
Dryade,  La,  Vigny,  5 
Dryden,  John,  183,  353,  354,  355 
Du  Bartas,  345 

Du  Bellay,  Joachim,  Visions,  344 
Dubreuil,  M.  I'Abb^,  156,  157 
Duchesse  Bleue,  La,  M.  Bourget 's 

244-249,  269 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  27,  32,  267 

i&loa,  Vigny,  7,  10,  11-12,  16 
Embarrassments,        Mr.        Henry 

James's,  244 
Empedocles,  Matthew  Arnold,  301 
Endymion,  Keats's,  300 
English    poetry,   the    influence    of 

France  upon,  330-363 
EnsorceUe,  L\  d'Aurevilly,  96 
d! Epicure,  Le  Jardin,  A.   France, 

191,  198 
Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,    Pope's. 

356 
Espinasse,  Mademoiselle  de  L',  36, 

37.48 
]&tape,  L',  Bourget,  260-265 
itoiles,  Les,  Daudet,  115 
Jitourdi,  Molifere's,  353 
Avangeliste,  Daudet,  no,  119 

Fabre,  Abb^  Fulcran,  155,  156 

Ferdinand,  153-181,  268 

Fantome   d  Orient,    P.    Loti,   203, 

221,  227 
Fie  Amoureuse,  La,  TaAsl,  130 
Ferriol,  Baron  d'Argental,  Charles 

de,  37.  38,  41,  44,  56 
Madame  de,  38,  43,  44,  46,  47, 

51,  56,  62,  6s 
Feuillet,  O.  150,  268 
Fielding,  H.,  246 
Figures  et  Choises  qui  passaient,  P. 

Loti,  220-227 
Fitzjames,  Duchess  of,  57 
Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  Mr.  James,  ix, 

340 
Flaubert,  G.,  118,  127,  142,  270 


368 


INDEX 


Fleurs  du   Mai,    Baudelaire,   318 

319 
Fleury,  Cardinal  de,  55 
Forces  Tumultueuses,  Les,  M.  Ver- 

haeren,  315 
Forgeron,  Le,  Zola's,  138 
Fort,  M.  Paul,  324-329 
France,  M.  Anatole,  174,  189-201, 

269 
Friendship's      Garland,     Matthew 

Arnold,  269 
Froissart,  340 
Fromont     Jeune    et    Risler    Ahii, 

Daudet,  III,  119,  120,  121 

GaliUe,    P.    Loti's   La,    216,    217, 

218,  219-220,  227,  234 
Gamier,  Th^ophile,  11,  131,  362 
Gay,  Delphine,  7,  13 
Gesvres,  Due  de,  39,  40 
Ghil,  M.  Ren6,  293 
Gilbert,  poet,  19,  20 
Goethe,  95,  103 
Goncourt,  Edmond  de,   117,    118, 

137,  180,  268 
Gower,  John,   Cinquante  Balades, 

342 
Grandeur  et  Servitude  Militaires, 

Vigny,  6,  24-25 
Granson,  Oton  de,  340.  342 
Gray,  Thomas,  59,  334,  357 
Grignan,  Madame  de,  50,  70 
Gu6rin,  Maurice  de,  94,  95 
Guerres,  Zola's  Trois,  143-144 
Guilleragues,    Pierre  Girardin    de, 

85,86 

Hal^vy,  M,  Ludovic,  273 
Hardy,  Mr.  T.,  155,  172,  176,  180, 

268 
Harland,  Mr.  Henry,  183,  184 
Hennique,  M.  L6on,  La  Devouie, 

142 
Herbert,  Edward,  311 
Heredia,  M.  de,  295,  323 
Hirodiade,  Mallarm<5,  305,  309 
Hervieu,  M.  Paul,  270 


Histoire  Comigue,  A.  France,  i 

200,  201 
Histoire  d^une    Grecque    Modeme 

Pr^vot,  58 
Histoire  san  Nom,  Une,  d'Aurevilly 

97 
Homme    d' Affaires,    Un,    Bourget 

270 
Hommes,  Les  CEuvres  et  les,  d'Aute 

villy,  103 
Horace,  356 
Horaces,  Les,  351,  352 
Howel,  James,  68,  69 
Hugo,  Victor,  i,  5,  6,  8,  10,  16,  93, 

184.  315.  329,  359.  361,  362 
Humble  Amour,   M.    Ren6   Bazin, 

285 
Huysmans,    M.   Joris   Karel,    142, 

271 

Ibsen,  H.,  189,  196 

Idylle  Tragique,  Une,  Bourget,  251 

Immortel,  L\  Daudet,  119 

Isez,  the  surgeon,  53 

Italie,    Bourget's     Sensations     d\ 

253 
Italiens  d'Aujourd'hui,    Les,    M. 
Bazin,  289 

Jack,  Daudet,  113,  119,  120 
James,  Mr.  Henry,  45,   120,   202, 

244,  247,  251,  269 
Jardin   de  t Infante,    Au,    A.    Sa- 

main's,  320,  321-323 
Jean   Gourdon,    Zola's   Les  Quatre 

Journies  de,  139-141 
Jean  Le  Maire  des  Beiges,  343 
Jephtd,  La  Fille  de,  Vigny,  6 
Jeux  Rustiques  et  Divins,  Les.  M. 

H.  de  R^gnier's,  295 
Jonson,  Ben,  311 
Jusserand,  M.,  75 

Kean,  Edmund,  15 

Keats,  7,  109,  295,  299,  300,  302, 

334.  338.  359,  360 
Kyd,  Thomas,  345 


INDEX 


369 


Lacordaire,  162,  163 

La  Fontaine,  Jean  de,  Adonis,  350 

Lamartine,  A.  de,  2,  319,  359,  360 

Lammenais,  F.  de,  13 

Langland,  William,  339 

La  Terre,  Zola's,  129 

Lauzun,  99, 100 

Leblond,  C^Mnie,  47,  63 

Lecouvreur,  Adrienne,  59 

Lee,  Mr.  Sidney,  345 

Ulia,  George  Sand,  95 

Le  Lutrin,  Boileau,  356 

Lemaltre,  M.  Jules,  119,  153,  269 

Le  Petit  Chose,  Uaudet,  in,  112, 

1T4,  121,  122,  126 
Les  Precieuses  Ridicules,  Moli^re's, 

353 
L' Estrange,  Sir   Roger,  Five  Love 

Letters  from  a  Nun  to  a  Cavalier, 

90 
Lettres   de   mon    Moulin,   Daudet, 

114,  115,  126 
Lettres  Portugaises,  68,  71 
Littiraire,  A.  France's  La  Vie,  191, 

269 
Lodge,  Thomas,  345 
Lorris,  Guillaume  de,  337,  338 
Loti,  Pierre,  138,  202-238,  268,  284 
Loves  of  the  Angels,  Moore's,  10,  n 
Lucifer,  Fabre,  F.,  160,   162,   166, 

179 
Lys  Rouge,  Le,  A.  France's,  191,  195 

Macaulay,  Mr.  G.  C,  342 
Machault,  Guillaume  de,  340,  342, 

362 
Madame  Corentine,  M.  Ren6  Bazin, 

283-284 
Maeterlinck,  M.,  313,  314 
Maintenon,  Madame  de,  85 
Malherbe,  F.,  346 
Mallarm6,  St^phane,  182,  293,  294, 

305-312 
Mannequin  S  Osier,  Le,  A.  France, 

191.  193 
Manon  Lescaut,  58,  119 
Mariage  de  Loti,  Le,  P.  Loti,  202, 

221 


Mariana  Alcaforada,  the  Portuguese 

Nun,  72-89 
Marot,  Clement,  344  ;  L' Adolescence 

Climentine,  343 
Ma   Tante  Giron,  M.   Ren6  Bazin, 

273.  274,  27s 
Matelot,  P.  Loti,  203,  227 
Maupassant,  M.  Guy  de,  113,  127, 

141,  142,  150,  242,  244,  270 
Ma  Vocation,  Fabre,  155 
Medailles    dArgile,    M.    R^gnier, 

299 
Miditations  Poitiques,    Lamartine, 

360 
Meung,  Jean  de,  337,  338,  340 
Milton,  John,  2,  13,  334,  348 
Mirour  de  COmme,  342 
Moines,  Les,  M.  Verhaeren,  314 
Mo'ise,  Vigny,  8 
Moli&e,  58,  350,  352,  353-354 
Mon  Frire  Yves,  P.  Loti,  228 
Montagne,  M.  Paul  Fort's,  327 
Montaigne,  M.,  192 
Montesquieu,  36 
Moore,  T.,    10,  11,  13;    The  Loves 

of  the  Angels,  10,  11 
Mor6as,  M.  Jean,  184,  i86,  187-188 
Moreau,  H6g6sippe,  23 
Morice,  M.  Charles,  184 
Motteville,    Madame  de,  Memoirs, 

82 
Moulin,  Zola's  L'Attaque  du,   142, 

143 
Musset,  Alfred  de.  Confession  dun 
Enfant  du  Siicle,  291 

Nabab,  Le,  Daudet,  119,  127 

Nana,  Zola's,  129 

Nichina,   La,   M.  Hughes    Rebell, 

271 
Nodier,  C,  6,  13 
Noellet,  Les,  M.  Bazin,  284 
Notre  Caeur,  Maupassant,  244 
Nouveaux  Lundis,  Sainte-Beuve,  3 
Numa    Roumestan,    Daudet,    119, 

120,  127 
Nun's  Love  Letters.    See  Portuguese 

Letters ;  see  Mariana  Alcaforada 
2  A 


37° 


INDEX 


Oncle   Cilestin,  Mon,    Fabre,   156, 

160 
Orme  du  Mail,  L',  A.  France,  191, 

192,  193,  194 
O'Shaughnessy,  Arthur,  324 
Othello,  Shakespeare's,  266,  345 
Otway,  Thomas,  354,  355 
Outre-. Mer,  M.  Bourget,  252,  259 

PALtoLOGUE,  M.,  13,  27 

Parabere,  Madame  de,  43,  48,  51, 

57,  64,  66 
Paris,  Gaston,  269 
Paris  Sentimental,  M.  Paul  Fort's, 

327,  328-329 
Parnasse  Contemporain,  307 
Parnassians,  295,  298,  307,  323 
Pascal,  190 
Pater,  Walter,  179 
Picheur  (Tlslande,    P.   Loti,    227, 

228,  284 
Pekin,  P.  Loti's,  234-238 
Pellissier,  operatic  star,  52 
Penruddock,  Mrs.,  70 
Perraud,  Cardinal,  153 
Petrarch,  341,  342 
Philips,  Katherine,  "  Orinda,"  351, 

352 
Philosophe  Marii,  Li,   Destouche, 

S8 
Pichot,  M.  Am^d^e,  159 
Pliiade,  the,  344 
Poe,    Edgar    Allan,    The    Raven, 

translated  by  S.  Mallarm^,  306 ; 

also  Poems,  307,  324 
Poimes,  Anciens  et    Romanesques, 

M.  R^gnier,  295 
Poimes,  Vigny,  S,  6,  7 
Polyphime,  A.  Saraain,  320 
Pont-de-Veyle,  Marquis  de,  38,  52, 

60 
Pontmartin,  M.  de,  92 
Pope,  Alexander,  2,   354-355.  356- 

357 
Portuguese  Letters,  68-90 
Pritre  Marii,  Le,  d'Aurevilly,  96, 

97 
Provost,  M.  Marcel,  270 


Provost  d'Exiles,  Abb^,  47,  58 
Propos  d^Exil,  P.  Loti,  227 
Province,  M.  Bazin's  En,  289 
Prudhomme,  M.  Sully,  298 

Qu^LEN,  Archbishop  de,  163 
Quinault,  352 

Racan,  348,  349 

Racine,  329,  333,  335,  350,  352,  353, 

354.  355 
Ramuntcho,  P.  Loti,  221,  226,  227- 

233 
Rape  of  the  Lock,  The,  Pope,  356 
Raphael,  12 
Ravenel,  M.,  49 
R^gnier,  M.  Henri  de,  293-304 
Renan,  E.,  153,  197,  292 
Reni,  Chateaubriand,  359 
Rideau  Cramoisi,  Le,  d'Aurevilly, 

99.  105 
Rieu,  Mademoiselle,  40,  45,  46 
Rod,  M.  Edouard,  272 
Rois  en  Exit,  Les,  Daudet,  119 
Rollinat,  Maurice,  319 
Roman    de    Louis    XL,    M.    Paul 

Fort's,  326 
Roman  de  la  Rose,  Lorris,  337,  338, 

339 
Roman  dun  Enfant,  P.  Loti,  224 
Roman    (Tun    Spahi,    Loti's,    205, 

228 
Roman  Experimental,  Zola's,  267 
Ronsard,  P.,  344,  345 
Roscommon ,  Earl  of,  347 
Rose  et  Ninette,  Daudet,  119 
Rosny,  271 
Rdtisserie  de  la  Reine  Pidauque,  A. 

France,  191 
Rotrou,  351 
Rougon -  Macquart  series  of  Zola, 

129,  13s,  136,  137,  149,  267 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  88,  358 
Route     d'Emeraude,     M.     Eugene 

Demoldei",  271 
Ruffec,  Due  de,  52 
Ruskin,  John,  35 
Rutter,  Joseph,  351 


INDEX 


371 


Saint-Amant,  348 

Sainte-Beuve,    C.    A.,   3,    17,   37, 

160 
Sainte    Claire,   Le    Putts    de,    A. 

France,  191 
Saint-Gelais,  Melin  de,  343 
Saint-Simon,  L.  de Rouvroi,  Ducdc, 

71.  85,  86 
Saint- Victor,  Paul  de,  106 
Samain,  Albert,  318-324 
Sand,  George,   18,  133,   155,    160, 

267 
Sandeau,  Jules,  160 
Santillana,  Spanish  poet,  340 
Sapho,  Daudet's,  109,  no,  119, 120, 

121,  122 
Sarcelle  Bleue,  La,  M.  Ren6  Bazin, 

277-280 
Scarron,  Paul,  no,  349 
Serve's,  Maurice,  Dilie,  345 
Schomberg,  Count  of,  73 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  12,  13,  359 
Scud^ry,  351 

Mademoiselle  de,  69 

S^ch^,  M.  L^on,  4,  13 
Segrais's  Eglogues,  349 
Serao,  Madame  Matilde,  II  paese  di 

Cuccagna,  247 
S^vign6,  Madame  de,  36,  37,  50,  70, 

82 
Shakespeare,  13,  15,  334,  338,  345, 

3SS 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  2,  219,  359 
Sir    Martin    Mar-all,    Dryden's, 

353 
Sleep  and  Poetry,  Keats,  360 
Smollett,  T.,  303 
Soumet,  A.,  13 
Southey,  Robert,  13 
Spectator,  The,  91 
Spenser,  Edmund,  344 
Stanley,  Dean,  Sinai  and  Palestine, 

207 
Stello,  Vigny,  18 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  180,  268 
Suckling,  Sir  John,  347 
Surrey,  Henry  Howard,  Earl  of,  343, 

344 


Swift,  Dean,  194,  197 

Swinburne,    Mr.    A.    C,  306,  333, 

362 
Symons,  Mr.  Arthur,  182 

Taine,  H.,  153,  154,  163,  179,  262, 

263 
Tarascon,  124,  128 
Tencin  family,  35,  38,  43,  48,  57 
Tennyson,  197,  295,  338,  361 
Terminations,    Mr.   Henry  James, 

224,  247 
Terre  qui  Meurt,  La,  M.   Bazin, 

285-289,  290 
Thais,  A.  France,  190 
Thirise  Raquin.  Zola's,  136 
Thyard,  Pontus  de,  345 
Tissot,  M.  Ernest,  104 
Tocqueville,  A.  de,  252,  255 
Toussaint  Galabru,  Fabre,  176 
Trebutien,  M.,  94 
Trois  A  mes  iA  rtistes.  See  Duchesse 

Bleue 
Trollope,  Anthony,  120,  159 

Ulbach,  Louis,  136,  137 

Vacances  dun  Jeune  Homme  Sage, 

Les,  M.  de  R^gnier,  302-304 
Vaines   Tendresses,   Les,  M.    Sully 

Prudhomme,  298 
Vathek,  Beckford,  with  preface  by 

Mallarm6,  307 
Verhaeren,  M.  Emile,  313-318 
Verlaine,  Paul,  a  first  sight  of,  182- 

188 
Versailles-aux-Fantimes,  M.  Marcel 

Batilliat,  300 
Viau,  Thtophile  de,  348 
Vieille  Maitresse,  Une,  d'Aurevilly, 

97 
Vigny,   Alfred  de,  1-34,  301,   319, 

359.  360 
Villes  Tentaculaires,  M.  Verhaeren, 

316 
Villette,     Marquise    de,     41,     42, 

46-47 
VogU6,  M.  Melchior  de,  242 


372 


INDEX 


Voiture,  Vincent,  69,  70,  349 
Voltaire,  36,  42,  45,  49,  53,  58,  59, 

64.  335.  358 
Voyageuses,  M.  Paul  Bourget,  239- 
244,  247,  250 

Waller,  Edmund,  346,  347,  355 
Whitman,  Walt,  325,  329 


Wordsworth,   William,   2,   19,   30, 

325.  359 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  343,  344 

Yeats,  Mr.  W.  B. ,  323,  326 

Zola,   Emile,    117,    118,    129-152, 
189,  246 


THE    END 


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